Birds of a feather
I see that the dysfunction caused by the mule-like stubbornness of Multnomah County's inept commission chair, Jessica Chevy Vega (right), is spilling over into the Portland City Council, where her alter ego, Carmen "Chainsaw" Rubio (left), is keeping a seat warm.
This week the city council joined a nearly unanimous chorus calling on Vega to let the county's private ambulance contractor use more EMTs in the name of getting more ambulances on the street. But Rubio, who wasn't around for the City Council vote, is mad that anyone would dare question the genius of the Vega without first calling her and kissing up a bit. Shane Kavanaugh of the O had the story in a couple of tweets yesterday:
In a follow-up statement, Rubio, is now accusing her council colleague — and mayoral rival — Rene Gonzalez of not "meaningfully" & "authentically" engaging w/ JVP's office.
— Shane Dixon Kavanaugh (@shanedkavanaugh) February 22, 2024
Had he done so, she would have "likely voted yes."
In other words, she still won't say how she'd vote. https://t.co/YTjs5gkFOl pic.twitter.com/1MOquJQnkF
I found the proper definition of ranked choice voting:
ReplyDeleterank> adjective
: offensive in odor or flavor
especially : RANCID
The hysteria around ranked choice voting is kind of funny. After years of following the proprietor's former blog and now this one, every one of the pols who are constantly bathed in acid and bile on this site were elected by first-past-the-post ballots that forced voters to worry about who all the other voters might support when deciding who to vote for. RCV lets voters just rank the candidates -- you no longer have to worry that your vote for your favorite might help elect the one you like the least. So the more you are unhappy with the status quo of politicians on the menu, the happier you should be that you no longer have to vote strategically and based on guesses about what other voters will do -- you can just rank the candidates in the order you like them.
DeleteNo. Rank-choice voting is a solution in search of a problem. The reasons we have incompetent people running Portland are (a) the voters are super-progressive and not too bright, (b) every Tom Dick and Harry gets public funding of their campaigns at the city level, and (c) nobody with any real management skills wants the low pay, character assassination, and hassles of dealing with the shrill people on the far left who will firebomb your mother's car. As we will soon see, rank-choice voting is going to make the bad situation even worse, which is quite a feat. And if anything, rank-choice voting by definition calls for all sorts of strategic moves. It was a terrible idea that in a few years will be put in the same category as Measure 110: reviled.
DeleteTo add to Jack's comments, no one remembers that Portland had ranked choice voting from 1912 - 1932 (approximately), when we concluded the system was a disaster. I predict this iteration will end the same way.
DeleteWanna learn how ranked choice voting REALLY works, try this trick.
DeleteAfter the first RCV election, contact Elections and ask them which of your ranked choices actually got YOUR vote.
They won't be able to tell you.
And that's one of the bigger problems with RCV: You never know who gets your vote.
We have been using rcv in an officials' organization I belong to for 12 - 15 years. Fortunately, most candidates are well-qualified. But in one election several years ago the person who finished second in the initial vote eventually won. He was qualified - second place candidates for city council might not be.
DeleteMapps wanting to run or mayor?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2024/02/portland-mayoral-hopeful-mingus-mapps-is-out-of-campaign-cash-and-in-the-red-8-months-before-election.html
Even weaker mayor system with the reform, likely bad times ahead.
Wheeler seems to be a good sport about it, at least?
I’ll be honest; I’m all too eager for the public to use the mayor’s face like a toilet/negative name recognition association as is common in many major American cities for a disguised affluent suburbanite creep like Gonzales & tax dodger vsncouverite Char-lie Hales before him.
But I also think he’d still do damage.
I like Mapps, but I also feel like he too nice/the bureaucrats will/are eating him alive.
Dan Ryan doesn’t seem to want it, but I liked him well enough, too?
It is hard to be on the City Council and not get sucked into the toxic mindset of the bureaucrats. Almost impossible. Mapps has lost the battle. Ryan probably didn't even put up a fight.
DeleteJust remember Mapps seems to support all these idiotic PBOT endeavors. They just closed NE 72nd northbound through Rose City Golf Course, despite hundreds of cars a day using that road, and now having to drive a mile or more additional to get to their destination. And now we have this idiotic "Rest on Red."
DeleteI came here to post the same. Mapps seem to be pandering to the car-hating, BikePortland crowd to such an extent I wonder if he's on their payroll.
Delete“Authentic” is one of the fav wokespeak terms. Whatever the wokes want is “authentic”; anything else, isn’t
ReplyDeleteIf I am understanding the news report correctly, Commissioner Rubio is saying that she doesn’t know whether she will support or oppose a proposal until she learns if Commissioner Mapps has been properly respectful to the county commission chair.
ReplyDeleteSee:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2024/02/multnomah-county-signs-on-to-measure-110-diversion-approach-seeks-25-million-for-deflection-center.html
First in line for a new pile of taxpayer dough... I wonder if JVP will spend give it all to Candace Avalos in the name of "climate justice" instead.
Now that Sam-I-Am has entered a county commissioner race, it will be interesting to see if he aligns with SVP, or if they butt heads, given what seems like two enormous egos.
ReplyDelete