Comments from readers
We write. You respond
Regulating citizen participation
Ah, the irony: as thousands of us participate in the “No Kings” marches, there are those who happily not only allow, but push for, the Office of Community & Civic Life” to reign unchecked in the name of values. Perhaps we need a large, more locally-focused “No Sovereign Departments” march around City Hall.
Multnomah County’s last chance
Eric Siverson
As someone with 30 years experience in Addiction Medicine and has been part of teams to open residential treatment programs, I don’t see the state, county, or city of Portland doing the complex work of opening and running the treatment centers needed to address the mental health and addiction issues that the homeless present with. The absolute inability of the city/county to open a sobering center reflects their incompetence. Meetings after meetings. Promises after promises. It’s just easier to hand out needles, tarps, and tents, count how many people you have contacted and state you are serving thousands. And Tina Kotek has to go, she is an absolute failure as a leader.
Linda Witt
It's exasperating that the solutions are clear, but that the governor, the mayor, the city council and county leadership are simply incapable of leadership, cooperation, accountability and execution. City Council has only a couple leaders with smarts and integrity—the rest are amateurs with a severe lack of experience of any kind, and are incapable of analysis and good decision-making. The governor needs to go, no question—she ignores everyone and everything. The county should be ashamed of themselves for their failed programs that have squandered so much money. It's no wonder that the city, Multnomah County and Oregon as a whole have seen more people leaving than arriving, reversing decades of net in‑migration. And of course, those people are taking tax dollars with them.
Few attend May budget listening session
Cormac Burke
I can’t help but wonder if the sparse attendance wasn’t a reflection of the fact that many ‘random citizens’ may simply feel like their voices aren’t heard by some of the Council Members whose minds are already made up on what is worth keeping and what should be cut in the new budget.
Mayor Wilson’s recent letter to constituents calls out how so many Council discussions are being dominated by well organized/vocal groups which are making it challenging if not impossible for some to get their points across.
I think there is a real sense of “budget fatigue” among many of us who have spent years advocating, testifying, and trying to bring common sense to funding decisions that repeatedly target shelter services, outreach, and camp abatement. Every year it feels like the same conversation: cuts, cuts, cuts.
Needle distribution
Ollie Parks
Crusading zeal — the absolute conviction that one's cause is so morally urgent that normal considerations of proportion, courtesy, and respect for others simply don't apply — is genuinely dangerous independent of the cause it attaches to. It is dangerous because it eliminates the internal governor that would otherwise constrain behavior. It is dangerous because it self-reinforces — the more disruptive the protest, the more certain the protester becomes of their own moral seriousness, because only someone truly committed would be willing to behave this way. And it is dangerous because it is essentially immune to external feedback, since any criticism from outside the movement is automatically read as evidence of the critic's moral corruption rather than as information worth processing.
MAC bomber exposes gap
Talia Giardini
Also, as a nurse, I have been paying attention to Oregon Nurses Association legislation as they continue to push for it to be a crime to assault nurses, but it continues to fail due in part to Disability Rights Oregon. They say “it would disproportionately affect the mentally ill.” I do not agree with this because HCPs are caring individuals that are bound by a code of ethics. I have been assaulted a couple of times and feared assault more times than I can count. However, most people, even with complex mental illness and disability respond to boundaries. Boundaries are something our local society is deeply lacking.
Thomas Dodson
I think that when it comes to committed patients, that all means should be taken by the criminal justice system to ensure the safety of the public and the patient. And of course, the staff, which are often as you point out are sometimes assaulted and often feel fear at work in difficult environments. It makes me angry to see the criminal justice system pawn the responsibility for public safety off on mental health.