Mr. Moonlight has an opinion

Jesse Beason, the interim Multnomah County commissioner, appears to be making around $10,400 a month in that gig while apparently making another $220,000-plus annually running a "dark money" organization and a "nonprofit," both called Northwest Health Foundation. And so it was pretty amusing to see him go on social media the other day to sound off on how wonderful the county "preschool for all" income tax is, and what an immoral person you are if you dare question it.

"We are told story we have a really high tax burden, but we're really talking about a tax on the people who can most afford it," he bleated, clumsily. "I don't know what it's like to make a decision of being so rich and choosing to leave a community rather than contribute to it. That's a moral decision." He went on: "This year, almost 1400 seats have been provided by Preschool for All. Those seats are 96% full. The call for a tax moratorium did not come from the people whose children are benefiting from Preschool for All.  I pay the tax, and I'm not uprooting my family to avoid it."

Ha! Ha! Well, of course he isn't. If he moved out of the county, he'd be back down to one salary, a mere $220,000.

When you're raking in $345,000 wearing three hats, and none of them at a real job, you can afford to be very, very moral.

I still don't understand how this guy can moonlight on the county commission, for pay or not. Or how Sushi Jayapal had the legal right to hand him her seat on her way out the door. It's nothing short of crazy.

It would also be interesting to know what the Northwest Health Foundation got for the $539,500 it paid in 2022 to "Dancing Hearts Consulting," which as best I can tell is a one- or two-person political consulting operation down in Ashland. "We design comprehensive voter engagement strategies for candidates who share our values and issue campaigns that build community, nurture new leaders, and have lasting value beyond Election Day." That's what they say. What does a tax-exempt foundation need that kind of contractor for? And it wasn't the first year it paid them mid-six figures.

Oh, well. Don't expect any of the local media to dig around on this guy or his nonprofit cubbyholes. In the meantime, he can spout all his numbers about the preschool tax, but everybody knows it's a Chevy Vega production, and thus a predictable waste.

If there's a runoff for Jayapal's seat, we taxpayers will be paying him until November at least, and maybe even through the end of the year. Oh, the morality.