Dim bulbs

I see that Portland commissioner Dan Ryan has finally figured out that it might not be such a smart idea to take 200-plus lights out of the parks for a year and change, while replacement light poles are on order. And so, after nearly half of the old poles have already been removed, his Parks Bureau has stopped yanking them out and will try to bring in some temporary lighting until the new ones get here.

Duh! The Weed's Sophie Peel, as usual gleefully stabbing Ryan, has the story here.

Apparently this whole episode started when somebody attached a hammock to an old pole, which collapsed when the person got into the hammock. The bureaucrats could have simply put signs on the old poles warning people not to do that. If  the legions of lawyers in the city attorney's office are too busy jerking people around, I'm sure an outside firm could have been brought in at $100,000 or so to write the signs. But instead Dandy Dan and the boys just started demolition. Parks with no lights, a brilliant idea at a time when the city is in the throes of a crime wave.

It's all designed to get the voters to increase property taxes (and therefore rents) to fund basic maintenance. But I think it's having the opposite effect. If the competence of management is going to be a selling point, forget it.