As a registered Independent, I had considered exploring a particular Republican candidate for governor. However, after that candidate was awarded a single million dollar campaign contribution from a very wealthy donor, that person will not be getting my vote.
I look forward to Dan Meek and his org putting a ballot measure forward to limit campaign finance. Salem has lost their way. It’s nothing more than a puppet show with the ideologically captured unions (SEIU, OEA) pulling the strings. And it’s the same reason why we can’t get moderate democrats to primary most incumbents.
Well, we got at least one to primary Reynolds this May! I'll bring practical, common sense leadership informed by living in the trenches with our state's toughest challenges and learning how to implement community-focused solutions.
Portlanders have tried to "stay nonpartisan" for too long. There are clear distinctions between what one would hope to happen in the future. I believe a strong conservative candidate who doesn't see themselves are regionally limited is the way to go. Someone who can bridge the rural city divide and who will strengthen the fundamentals. Police who arrest people who violate public laws. Prosecutors and judges who punish them appropriately. A practical and humane civil commitment system. More police. More inpatient psychiatric care in local hospitals. Fix the roads. Strengthen education. The current leaders and government are in many cases making the problems we are trying to solve worse. It is as if our current national representatives who are horribly misguided and destructive to an American future, have filtered down to the local level where the political establishment is ten times worse. It will get better, but when?
The only way to control campaign finance gluttony is to pass the Citizens United Constitutional Amendment. Legislators, the wealthy and the media- all of whom profit mightily under the current system - will never earnestly support the change we need. Only us, we the people, can make it happen.
I’m a lifelong Democratic voter who has become completely disenchanted with most of our local Democratic leadership. Many of them are virtue signaling ideologues who seem incapable of stepping out of their partisan bubbles and practically solving real-world problems. And they’re very quick to label their political agenda as “Oregon Values” or “Portland Values”, as if those terms absolve them from having to take public safety, infrastructure maintenance and fiscal responsibility seriously. I genuinely wish we had a viable, rational centrist political party in Oregon.
On a positive note this article did spur me to contact Lisa Reynolds’s, the (apparently) feckless (and Democratic) NW Portland State Senator who recently quashed Senate Bill 1573 at the last minute. We can only guess as to the reason why: ideological purity and, or political expediency would be my guess. She should be turned out of office if she can’t give a reasonable explanation as to why she acted this way.
This is why I'm challening her in this May's primary! You have an alternative practical, common sense Democrat candidate for State Senator, District 17 to vote for by May 19!! :)
Thank you for this well written piece that so eloquently verbalized all my current frustrations with the city and state leadership.
While I feel that I want to say we are reaching a breaking point - that is such an inadequate statement.
Portland is broken. If our leadership can’t get the EASY decisions made (like passing Senate Bill 1583) then how are they ever going to fix the bigger problems at hand?!?
I continue to wonder about when we can ask to have access to harm reduction services for our own children in this city?
We regularly avoid certain city playgrounds because of our own safety concerns. Often they are overrun with people that are clearly suffering from an assortment of mental health and drug addiction issues. We have to step over human waste and drug paraphernalia as we walk to and from these parks or our own neighborhood school.
When I am asked to continue to pay some of the highest taxes in the country and see absolutely no results when doing so I can’t help myself but scream.
If I can’t get support from my elected democratic senator on these issues that just make common sense - who do we vote for???
Our leadership must pivot back to a "common good" framework—one where the safety of our children and our neighbors and our community that I so love as well as the accessibility of our neighborhood are treated as non-negotiable priorities.
You can vote for me this in this May's primary for Democrat State Senator, District 17! I'll bring practical, common sense leadership informed by living in the trenches with our state's toughest challenges, and learning how to enact real solutions that prioritize the safety of our children, neighbors, and community. I'm a cofounder of Friends of Couch Park, and you can see for yourself how the park has improved in the past two years because we made it our mission to make Couch Park safe for kids; if we make it safe for children, we make it safe for everyone. We need legislators who live in and with the communities they serve, learning from successes (like Couch Park) and failures (like SB1573 dying in the Oregon Senate) to steer a practical, community-focused course.
Thanks for stating it plainly. You can hear from Reynolds (and myself, but it was my first so not finest) in this recent candidate forum starting at 1:31:00. FYI she gives factually incorrect info when she states that SB1573 would have ended harm reduction in our state. In fact, the bill supported contiued harm reduction efforts across the state, just not in school zones. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyLyo9ZOMOI&list=LL&index=1&t=6174s
I don't care which party it is, but 3+ decades of single-party rule always becomes ineffective and non-responsive to the electorate. I will be voting straight Republican in Oregon until we get some balance. I don't care if the candidate is Vladimir Putin or Pol Pot.
As a registered Independent, I had considered exploring a particular Republican candidate for governor. However, after that candidate was awarded a single million dollar campaign contribution from a very wealthy donor, that person will not be getting my vote.
I look forward to Dan Meek and his org putting a ballot measure forward to limit campaign finance. Salem has lost their way. It’s nothing more than a puppet show with the ideologically captured unions (SEIU, OEA) pulling the strings. And it’s the same reason why we can’t get moderate democrats to primary most incumbents.
Well, we got at least one to primary Reynolds this May! I'll bring practical, common sense leadership informed by living in the trenches with our state's toughest challenges and learning how to implement community-focused solutions.
Hell yeah you will!
Portlanders have tried to "stay nonpartisan" for too long. There are clear distinctions between what one would hope to happen in the future. I believe a strong conservative candidate who doesn't see themselves are regionally limited is the way to go. Someone who can bridge the rural city divide and who will strengthen the fundamentals. Police who arrest people who violate public laws. Prosecutors and judges who punish them appropriately. A practical and humane civil commitment system. More police. More inpatient psychiatric care in local hospitals. Fix the roads. Strengthen education. The current leaders and government are in many cases making the problems we are trying to solve worse. It is as if our current national representatives who are horribly misguided and destructive to an American future, have filtered down to the local level where the political establishment is ten times worse. It will get better, but when?
Amen to that.
The only way to control campaign finance gluttony is to pass the Citizens United Constitutional Amendment. Legislators, the wealthy and the media- all of whom profit mightily under the current system - will never earnestly support the change we need. Only us, we the people, can make it happen.
Ann Barkley
I’m a lifelong Democratic voter who has become completely disenchanted with most of our local Democratic leadership. Many of them are virtue signaling ideologues who seem incapable of stepping out of their partisan bubbles and practically solving real-world problems. And they’re very quick to label their political agenda as “Oregon Values” or “Portland Values”, as if those terms absolve them from having to take public safety, infrastructure maintenance and fiscal responsibility seriously. I genuinely wish we had a viable, rational centrist political party in Oregon.
On a positive note this article did spur me to contact Lisa Reynolds’s, the (apparently) feckless (and Democratic) NW Portland State Senator who recently quashed Senate Bill 1573 at the last minute. We can only guess as to the reason why: ideological purity and, or political expediency would be my guess. She should be turned out of office if she can’t give a reasonable explanation as to why she acted this way.
This is why I'm challening her in this May's primary! You have an alternative practical, common sense Democrat candidate for State Senator, District 17 to vote for by May 19!! :)
Bob,
Thank you for this well written piece that so eloquently verbalized all my current frustrations with the city and state leadership.
While I feel that I want to say we are reaching a breaking point - that is such an inadequate statement.
Portland is broken. If our leadership can’t get the EASY decisions made (like passing Senate Bill 1583) then how are they ever going to fix the bigger problems at hand?!?
I continue to wonder about when we can ask to have access to harm reduction services for our own children in this city?
We regularly avoid certain city playgrounds because of our own safety concerns. Often they are overrun with people that are clearly suffering from an assortment of mental health and drug addiction issues. We have to step over human waste and drug paraphernalia as we walk to and from these parks or our own neighborhood school.
When I am asked to continue to pay some of the highest taxes in the country and see absolutely no results when doing so I can’t help myself but scream.
If I can’t get support from my elected democratic senator on these issues that just make common sense - who do we vote for???
Our leadership must pivot back to a "common good" framework—one where the safety of our children and our neighbors and our community that I so love as well as the accessibility of our neighborhood are treated as non-negotiable priorities.
You can vote for me this in this May's primary for Democrat State Senator, District 17! I'll bring practical, common sense leadership informed by living in the trenches with our state's toughest challenges, and learning how to enact real solutions that prioritize the safety of our children, neighbors, and community. I'm a cofounder of Friends of Couch Park, and you can see for yourself how the park has improved in the past two years because we made it our mission to make Couch Park safe for kids; if we make it safe for children, we make it safe for everyone. We need legislators who live in and with the communities they serve, learning from successes (like Couch Park) and failures (like SB1573 dying in the Oregon Senate) to steer a practical, community-focused course.
Thanks for stating it plainly. You can hear from Reynolds (and myself, but it was my first so not finest) in this recent candidate forum starting at 1:31:00. FYI she gives factually incorrect info when she states that SB1573 would have ended harm reduction in our state. In fact, the bill supported contiued harm reduction efforts across the state, just not in school zones. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyLyo9ZOMOI&list=LL&index=1&t=6174s
I don't care which party it is, but 3+ decades of single-party rule always becomes ineffective and non-responsive to the electorate. I will be voting straight Republican in Oregon until we get some balance. I don't care if the candidate is Vladimir Putin or Pol Pot.