Ryan takes hostages

Two years and change into his tenure at City Hall, city commissioner Dandy Dan Ryan doesn't have a lot to show for it. He was supposed to get some managed camps going and get some of the tent squatters off the streets. As far as I can tell, they're still in the yakety-yak stage on that. 

Now he's taken over the parks bureau from Chainsaw Rubio, and as his first act, he's having the lighting in some of the parks taken down. Some of the old light poles are unstable, and they're supposedly afraid one of them might fall on somebody. So they're removing them all, and not replacing them for a year or more because golly, we have no money for that.

Just what a city needs in the midst of a drug crisis and accompanying crime wave – parks with no lights. The usual impeccable Portland City Hall timing.

Of course, their real timing on this is to soften up the public for a property tax increase for basic park maintenance. The bobbleheads in the state legislature are busy creating a new Portland parks taxing district, and voters here will be asked soon to increase everybody's taxes (and therefore rents) to pay for the basics of having parks. And of course, it will pass. "It's for the children!"

In the meantime, don't even think of going in the park at night. Shame on Ryan.