Another dream botched

The Portland City Council could screw up any task, no matter how simple. But give them something complicated like reforming police discipline, and in no time flat, they will tangle it up beyond all recognition.

Today we learn from the outgoing city auditor, Mary Hull Caballero, that the new police review system that the voters passed in a November 2020 ballot measure is way behind schedule and probably won't be in place for another four years. And in the meantime, Caballero's office, which has run the existing police review board, is washing its hands of the whole thing. Police discipline will be run directly by the City Council, or somebody else they designate, starting this summer. Maybe Dud Wheeler and Creepy Sam will run it out of Cafe Nell during happy hour.

Caballero and city commisioner Jo Ann "With the Bullhorn" Hardesty have been hissing at each other for more than a year now over this. And I'm sure the rogue police union is doing everything it can to gum up the transition. What a perfect cocktail of dysfunction. So now not only will we have no police protection, but we will also have less police accountability than ever.

This is what happens when you elect people to political office that you wouldn't trust to fill a short grocery order for you. This is what happens when you give hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to any clown who wants to run for that office. This is what happens when government employee unions run everything. You get one fustercluck after another. Keep it up, Portland. You are making history.