100%. And while we’re at it, let’s please vote Kotek out. She’s cut from the same cloth as everyone currently dismantling Portland. We need state laws and support to do what needs to be done to clean this city up. Let’s not forget her advocacy for decriminalizing hard drugs and every bad idea in between. Let’s send a message in November that we’re done being an experiment in “progressive” extremism.
I haven't voted for a Republican since 1976, and I am a Biden- and Harris-voting centrist Dem, but I am voting for Drazan in November unless she makes a MAGA turn. Kotek is a phony schemer, period.
A vote for a Republican, is a vote for Trump, it’s a vote for ICE, it’s a vote against health care, they ALL “make the MAGA turn” …these are not normal times. Don’t give them one vote anywhere.
Oregon ranks last or near last in public safety, depression, overall mental health, and homelessness. Our education system is among the nation's worst. We rank near the bottom for economic and workforce competitiveness, while businesses and residents continue to shoulder one of the least competitive tax environments in the country. Oregon has one of the nation's highest rates of addiction (with Portland as the epicenter) while ranking last for access to treatment.
These aren't partisan talking points—they're national rankings from independent organizations. When a state consistently finishes at or near the bottom across public safety, education, mental health, homelessness, addiction treatment, economic competitiveness, and taxes, it's no longer possible to dismiss the results. They're symptoms of systemic failure. Portlanders pay too much and receive too little in return. We should expect—and demand—far better from our state and city leadership.
Did it ever occur to you that many Democrat elects in Oregon are so notably awful because they know no matter how horribly they perform people like you will still vote for them? I believe they call this cutting off your nose to spite your face, and it may as well be Kotek’s campaign slogan. It’s ok though, right, because you hate Trump.
I'm a life-long Democrat who proudly voted for Betsy Johnson the last time around. I will NOT vote for Kotek. I have come to the conclusion that what we need in Mahonia Hall is someone who will threaten to veto the egregious virtue-signaling, hyper-progressive bills passed by our Urban Democratic legislators, who seem unwilling or unable to actually look for bipartisan solutions to our problems.
Tina Kotek clearly will never veto a bill passed by her team, so I'm voting for someone who will.
I think all of us, Democrat and Republican, forget three important things. I am speaking here as a 78 year old Boomer Democrat and Downtown resident.
1. Most of the major problems we have today cannot be resolved by the Private Sector alone, but we need a Government seeking equity with Private Sector efficiency. Things like human accelerated climate change, nuclear proliferation, AI boundaries, public health crises and related mass migrations will not be solved by investor funded profit and return focused solutions fraught with unintended consequences and opaqueness. Nor will they be fixed with the kind of government entities we have today. We need Government to mediate and States need to cooperate with one another. None of these problems are solved with isolation. Same for Portland and its revenues.
2. Love it or hate it, we are all highly dependent upon Capitalism in this Country and the same is true in much of the World. That includes the homeless, those with behavioral health illness and other disabilities, the unemployed and the barely employed and the whole working class, even those employed by Government. It is the revenue generated by the operation of the Private Sector that is paying for what little help they get. Take it away suddenly, as Trump did with tariffs and Oregon has done with heavy taxation, and the revenue starts to disappear. We are a consumer society, like it or not. We have been trained on individual wants and myriad choices and have come to take needs for granted.
3. We have lost the concept of Public Service. I am guessing that most of you born after the millennial change don't even know what I am talking about, but what you do know is that most of our government is highly unionized, poorly respected my a large part of the population for its competence and devotion to solving public problems efficiently and in many cases, corrupt. Multnomah County is a postage child for this. Government work is no longer the noble work of solving the local society's problems by electeds and workers with fire in their belly. It is a place to bide your time waiting for a gig in the Private Sector or a place to change society from the inside. The day to day problems never get solved either way. Things just get worse and faith in government suffers.
We need a world of humans that are aspired by something more meaningful than a life fighting for wealth and power and more realistic than a heaven as a reward. We need something that makes our mission taking care of the place that sustains us. We need a different role for humans and some new isms to go along with it.
Not a very direct answer to Joe's 3 assignments, but I actually think they may be a good first step.
For me, voting for both Sharon Meieran and Julia Brim-Edwards for Multnomah County Chair will be the easiest of your assignments to complete.
Shannon Singleton, a county commissioner who wants the voters to promote her to County Chair, has never held a job that wasn't paid for by taxpayers or government contracts. She started in publicly funded shelters, ran a homeless-services nonprofit (JOIN), advised Governor Kate Brown, then became Oregon's Director of Equity and Racial Justice — chairing a Racial Justice Council that reorganized state budgets and policy around identity. Her one step outside government was a government-affairs firm chasing federal infrastructure dollars. Now she sits as a Multnomah County Commissioner.
Every rung in her career was on the same ladder: activist to nonprofit executive to political appointee to elected office, all inside a single publicly financed ecosystem, none of it ever tested against a payroll or a bottom line. And over the very years she was "moving thousands into housing," Portland's homelessness crisis got visibly, measurably worse. That's the revolving door — a career built entirely on public money, insulated from results, spinning the same people from advocacy into power.
If elected, Singleton wouldn't be working for the hard working voter-taxpayers of Multnomah County, that is, the people who borne the brunt of the County's failed progressive policies and programs along with the homeless, addicted and mentally ill). We're just here to pay the bills. Meanwhile, Singleton would continue doing what she's doing now, namely attending to the needs of her real constituents, the nonprofits and grievance activists who are pulling the city and the county down the drain.
Singleton was also against the Safe School ordinance to keep needle handouts away from schools. She voted yes for it, but did everything in her power to weaken it and was pretty rude to Brim-Edwards during the work sessions.
She was also all smiles when she personally called up Michael Gilbert of PPOP to speak. No other officials have been able to reach him to negotiate, up until this point. It makes you wonder if this was also a personal invite from Singleton as they are all part of the same ecosystem.
I think Brim Edwards has the lead and preferrably Meieran would drop out since her chance of winning is small. Sometimes one needs to begin anew realizing that a late start has signaled hesitancy among voters, never a good thing.
Thank you for taking the time and effort to put in writing what many ?most? of us are experiencing walking the city streets. Particularly helpful are the recommendations on who to vote for and why. Enough isn't enough any more, instead enough is more than enough. Change will come about one way or another, it is just a question of what kind of change it is. I approve of your list of suggestions.
There's only one seat open but we use rank choice to vote. if you vote Meirean and Brim-Edwards then they will take the top two positiions and NOT dilute the Progressive (not extreme left) vote to let Singleton in.
Well said Joe, agree with all of your suggestions and viewpoints. Your recounting of the 911 call is chilling. And deeply frustrating concerning the non response of the 911 operator. Now that it appears the Safer Portland initiative has turned in enough signatures, the next steps are supporting it through donations, volunteering and letting neighbors, friends and coworkers know about it. And the same goes for supporting Eli Arnold.
I love these assignments! YES, 100% vote Mitch Green out. He single-handedly killed opportunities to get more police officers on the streets. He is literally threatening our daily lives and our livelihoods with his ignorance and arrogance. YES, let's pass Safer Portland on November's ballot because it's the ONLY way we can get the public safety we need so very badly -- because the DSA absolutely intend to keep all of us unsafe, and their policies will accelerate the city's economic doomsday spiral. Re: Multco, I personally don't like Brim-Edwards for chair, but agree that we must do EVERYTHING we can to keep Shannon Singleton out of the chair position. (And yes to other commenters, let's get Tina Kotek out too.) Part of the problem is that Singleton, Kotek and Green "talk a good game" - they come across as slick operators who can convince some that their policies are on target, but you have to look at what they actually DO and how they vote, and not what they say (or how they spin it). Interestingly, there is a tone of underlying arrogance that will hopefully be the downfall of all three.
I am voting Brim Edwards who got the Safe School Zones ordinance passed with all five commisioners. She has leadership skills, good will among fellow council members, and stays focused. She is realistic and unassociated in any way with Measure 110 unlike other politicians. If you want substance rather than empty rhetoric consider her numero uno. She plays well with others.
The bigger the government the harder it is to communicate with
Nailed it! 👍👍👍
100%. And while we’re at it, let’s please vote Kotek out. She’s cut from the same cloth as everyone currently dismantling Portland. We need state laws and support to do what needs to be done to clean this city up. Let’s not forget her advocacy for decriminalizing hard drugs and every bad idea in between. Let’s send a message in November that we’re done being an experiment in “progressive” extremism.
I haven't voted for a Republican since 1976, and I am a Biden- and Harris-voting centrist Dem, but I am voting for Drazan in November unless she makes a MAGA turn. Kotek is a phony schemer, period.
A vote for a Republican, is a vote for Trump, it’s a vote for ICE, it’s a vote against health care, they ALL “make the MAGA turn” …these are not normal times. Don’t give them one vote anywhere.
Oregon ranks last or near last in public safety, depression, overall mental health, and homelessness. Our education system is among the nation's worst. We rank near the bottom for economic and workforce competitiveness, while businesses and residents continue to shoulder one of the least competitive tax environments in the country. Oregon has one of the nation's highest rates of addiction (with Portland as the epicenter) while ranking last for access to treatment.
These aren't partisan talking points—they're national rankings from independent organizations. When a state consistently finishes at or near the bottom across public safety, education, mental health, homelessness, addiction treatment, economic competitiveness, and taxes, it's no longer possible to dismiss the results. They're symptoms of systemic failure. Portlanders pay too much and receive too little in return. We should expect—and demand—far better from our state and city leadership.
Did it ever occur to you that many Democrat elects in Oregon are so notably awful because they know no matter how horribly they perform people like you will still vote for them? I believe they call this cutting off your nose to spite your face, and it may as well be Kotek’s campaign slogan. It’s ok though, right, because you hate Trump.
The republicans and Trump are taking away our democracy
I'm a life-long Democrat who proudly voted for Betsy Johnson the last time around. I will NOT vote for Kotek. I have come to the conclusion that what we need in Mahonia Hall is someone who will threaten to veto the egregious virtue-signaling, hyper-progressive bills passed by our Urban Democratic legislators, who seem unwilling or unable to actually look for bipartisan solutions to our problems.
Tina Kotek clearly will never veto a bill passed by her team, so I'm voting for someone who will.
I think all of us, Democrat and Republican, forget three important things. I am speaking here as a 78 year old Boomer Democrat and Downtown resident.
1. Most of the major problems we have today cannot be resolved by the Private Sector alone, but we need a Government seeking equity with Private Sector efficiency. Things like human accelerated climate change, nuclear proliferation, AI boundaries, public health crises and related mass migrations will not be solved by investor funded profit and return focused solutions fraught with unintended consequences and opaqueness. Nor will they be fixed with the kind of government entities we have today. We need Government to mediate and States need to cooperate with one another. None of these problems are solved with isolation. Same for Portland and its revenues.
2. Love it or hate it, we are all highly dependent upon Capitalism in this Country and the same is true in much of the World. That includes the homeless, those with behavioral health illness and other disabilities, the unemployed and the barely employed and the whole working class, even those employed by Government. It is the revenue generated by the operation of the Private Sector that is paying for what little help they get. Take it away suddenly, as Trump did with tariffs and Oregon has done with heavy taxation, and the revenue starts to disappear. We are a consumer society, like it or not. We have been trained on individual wants and myriad choices and have come to take needs for granted.
3. We have lost the concept of Public Service. I am guessing that most of you born after the millennial change don't even know what I am talking about, but what you do know is that most of our government is highly unionized, poorly respected my a large part of the population for its competence and devotion to solving public problems efficiently and in many cases, corrupt. Multnomah County is a postage child for this. Government work is no longer the noble work of solving the local society's problems by electeds and workers with fire in their belly. It is a place to bide your time waiting for a gig in the Private Sector or a place to change society from the inside. The day to day problems never get solved either way. Things just get worse and faith in government suffers.
We need a world of humans that are aspired by something more meaningful than a life fighting for wealth and power and more realistic than a heaven as a reward. We need something that makes our mission taking care of the place that sustains us. We need a different role for humans and some new isms to go along with it.
Not a very direct answer to Joe's 3 assignments, but I actually think they may be a good first step.
Beautifully said, Richard. Erudite. Poignant. Inspirational.
For me, voting for both Sharon Meieran and Julia Brim-Edwards for Multnomah County Chair will be the easiest of your assignments to complete.
Shannon Singleton, a county commissioner who wants the voters to promote her to County Chair, has never held a job that wasn't paid for by taxpayers or government contracts. She started in publicly funded shelters, ran a homeless-services nonprofit (JOIN), advised Governor Kate Brown, then became Oregon's Director of Equity and Racial Justice — chairing a Racial Justice Council that reorganized state budgets and policy around identity. Her one step outside government was a government-affairs firm chasing federal infrastructure dollars. Now she sits as a Multnomah County Commissioner.
Every rung in her career was on the same ladder: activist to nonprofit executive to political appointee to elected office, all inside a single publicly financed ecosystem, none of it ever tested against a payroll or a bottom line. And over the very years she was "moving thousands into housing," Portland's homelessness crisis got visibly, measurably worse. That's the revolving door — a career built entirely on public money, insulated from results, spinning the same people from advocacy into power.
If elected, Singleton wouldn't be working for the hard working voter-taxpayers of Multnomah County, that is, the people who borne the brunt of the County's failed progressive policies and programs along with the homeless, addicted and mentally ill). We're just here to pay the bills. Meanwhile, Singleton would continue doing what she's doing now, namely attending to the needs of her real constituents, the nonprofits and grievance activists who are pulling the city and the county down the drain.
Singleton was also against the Safe School ordinance to keep needle handouts away from schools. She voted yes for it, but did everything in her power to weaken it and was pretty rude to Brim-Edwards during the work sessions.
She was also all smiles when she personally called up Michael Gilbert of PPOP to speak. No other officials have been able to reach him to negotiate, up until this point. It makes you wonder if this was also a personal invite from Singleton as they are all part of the same ecosystem.
I think Brim Edwards has the lead and preferrably Meieran would drop out since her chance of winning is small. Sometimes one needs to begin anew realizing that a late start has signaled hesitancy among voters, never a good thing.
Thank you for taking the time and effort to put in writing what many ?most? of us are experiencing walking the city streets. Particularly helpful are the recommendations on who to vote for and why. Enough isn't enough any more, instead enough is more than enough. Change will come about one way or another, it is just a question of what kind of change it is. I approve of your list of suggestions.
Why would you vote for two candidates to be Multnomah County Chair?
There's only one seat open but we use rank choice to vote. if you vote Meirean and Brim-Edwards then they will take the top two positiions and NOT dilute the Progressive (not extreme left) vote to let Singleton in.
Well said Joe, agree with all of your suggestions and viewpoints. Your recounting of the 911 call is chilling. And deeply frustrating concerning the non response of the 911 operator. Now that it appears the Safer Portland initiative has turned in enough signatures, the next steps are supporting it through donations, volunteering and letting neighbors, friends and coworkers know about it. And the same goes for supporting Eli Arnold.
I love these assignments! YES, 100% vote Mitch Green out. He single-handedly killed opportunities to get more police officers on the streets. He is literally threatening our daily lives and our livelihoods with his ignorance and arrogance. YES, let's pass Safer Portland on November's ballot because it's the ONLY way we can get the public safety we need so very badly -- because the DSA absolutely intend to keep all of us unsafe, and their policies will accelerate the city's economic doomsday spiral. Re: Multco, I personally don't like Brim-Edwards for chair, but agree that we must do EVERYTHING we can to keep Shannon Singleton out of the chair position. (And yes to other commenters, let's get Tina Kotek out too.) Part of the problem is that Singleton, Kotek and Green "talk a good game" - they come across as slick operators who can convince some that their policies are on target, but you have to look at what they actually DO and how they vote, and not what they say (or how they spin it). Interestingly, there is a tone of underlying arrogance that will hopefully be the downfall of all three.
Yes, yes, yes. Thank you, Joe. What you espouse is sanity.
I think of Portland and Oregon as a big boat that needs to be turned. Not to oversimplify it but I think currently it needs to turn to the right.
Not too far but yes a little. Get to the center of the river, it’s deeper and rich in nutrients
I am voting Brim Edwards who got the Safe School Zones ordinance passed with all five commisioners. She has leadership skills, good will among fellow council members, and stays focused. She is realistic and unassociated in any way with Measure 110 unlike other politicians. If you want substance rather than empty rhetoric consider her numero uno. She plays well with others.