Is anybody good running for county commission?

If it were up to me, there'd be no Multnomah County Commission. We should merge the City of Portland and the county. As I recall, Vera Katz looked into it for a while; it's a shame she got talked out of it.

Having both city and county bureaucracies is not only redundant, but also a real hindrance to progress. Look at what's happening – or more accurately, not happening – with the tent camps all over town. There are now no fewer than three governments, each with their own cast of big egos, jostling to set policy: the city, the county, and Metro. It's ridiculous.

But if we're going to have a county commission, I guess it would be a good idea to get some good people on it. Alas, the only one of the four current board members who shows any common sense is Sharon Meieran. She's a doctor who actually kmows something about public health, and to her the answer to the street junkie crisis is not to build more bad apartments. The immediate need is to get the addicts off the streets and into treatment.

Meieran recently ran for county chair but lost to Jessica Vega Pederson, a true believer of the "housing first" fallacy. The race was getting closer toward the end, but Meieran ran out of time. And so now the Vega is the chair, and her old seat on the commission is vacant. (It's being filled at the moment by a temp.) Someone will be elected in May and serve until the end of 2024.

Who will that be?

Well, so far three candidates have popped up. The early frontrunner is Julia Brim-Edwards (right), a Nike exec whose claim to fame is being on the Portland School Board on and off for 22 years. I don't know. Have the Portland public schools been well-managed over that period of time? I'm not a big fan.

Then there's Ana del Rocio (center), whose big credentials are time on the David Douglas School Board and being a former aide to Vega. The controlling crew on the commission, including the now-departed chair Deadly Deborah, loved her, apparently. Del Rocio looks to me like she'd be Vega's second vote. I've seen that movie enough times.

And last but not least is a guy named Albert Kaufman, a northeast Portlander who runs some kind of marketing business. He was president of the Beaumont-Wilshire neighborhood association for a while, and he wrote quite a bit on the old BlueOregon blog. He's very green, and even more blue. Would he join with Meieran and make waves? Possibly, but that's not the vibe I'm getting.

The first one of these people who says that "housing first" is a mistake gets my vote. But I wll not be holding my breath waiting for that to happen.

And so no, folks, I don't think the vacancy on the commission is the start of a new path for the county. If I had to guess, the seat will be warmed by someone who will fit right in. Too bad.