The west side gets Sellwood and the Morelands
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The commission charged with drawing up Portland's four new voting districts for the City Council elections made its final call on the matter yesterday. They went with a slightly tinkered-with version of the "Alder" alternative, which means that Sellwood, Westmoreland, and Eastmoreland wind up in the same ward as the entire west side.
The policy mistake here, of course, is that there are only four districts, and an even bigger blunder is that there will be three City Council members from each of them. And to cap it all off, an experimental, goofball version of "ranked-choice voting" will ensure marginal competence on the council, at best. In that witches' brew, the district boundary lines are the least of the problems.
As best I can tell, the current City Council has no say in the map, and so the final version is here.
I feel bad for little Sellwood. Having their council members (maybe all of them) from the West Hills or the Pearl District isn't such a hot deal. But the districts have to have roughly equal populations. It makes you want to knock the original charter reform committee's thick heads together. My guess is that their handiwork will set the city's recovery back by a good 10 years. The over/under on crazies out of the first 12 council members currently stands at 4.5.
There are going to be so many recounts/lawsuits over the 2024 municipal elections that it's just going to be a circus. I'm stocking up on popcorn...
ReplyDeleteHow are the ballots from WashCo and ClackCo going to get counted?
ReplyDeleteJust because your mailing address is "Portland" DOES NOT mean you live in the City of Portland. For example, the mailing address for Cedar Mill (97229) is Portland but it's in unincorporated Washington County.
DeleteIf you haven't left Portland already you deserve this.
ReplyDeleteSaw the movement coming when the “keep Portland weird” posters started to appear. In my infinite wisdom, I didn’t think it would overcome common sense.
Delete“movement” is the key verb here as in the medical definition of bowel movement.
DeleteI'll lay a hundred on the over.
DeleteI'm going to laugh if this whole "charter reform" scheme -- engineered to make it easier for reflexively progressive special-interest candidates to get elected -- backfires and Portland gets a centrist, pragmatist mayor and Council who immediately start dismantling the damaging institutions that have been the folly of assorted Portland city governments for 40+ years:
ReplyDelete- Portland Street Response;
- funding for the Joint Office of Homeless Services;
- Office of Equity;
- etc etc etc
You can almost hear the screams of "Fascist!", "Voter fraud!", "Dark money!", "Recall!", etc etc etc
Portland Street Response actually helps people in crisis. I have seen it in action. Plenty of other legitimate targets exist.
DeleteIf there's a requirement for the four districts to have nearly equal populations, then some eastside neighborhoods have to been lumped in with any westside district. As for assuming that Sellwood is going to wind up represented by people from the West Hills or Pearl District, what's the reasoning behind this claim? What's stopping some civic-minded people in Sellwood (or "the Morelands") from running for the city council?
ReplyDeleteAn alternative, of course, would be to break apart the westside as a geographically coherent district and attach the parts to districts that are primarily on the eastside.
I have no preference in this matter.