Another bad penny
I see in the Weed that Marshall Runkel is running for mayor of Portland. I hadn't heard that name in a while. But I do remember him. He was chief
Runkel was also deeply involved when Sten foisted public campaign financing on the taxpayers. Every clown who wants to run for city office gets six figures offered to them for inane mailers, ads, and God-knows-what-all, and the taxpayers foot the bill. And in exchange, the citizenry gets even worse "leadership" than when they used to let the moneyed folk do the financing. I have no doubt Runkel will be cashing in on the "clean money" boondoggle himself.
Oh, and although he left City Hall for a while post-Opie, he returned to the city payroll for several years as the brains behind Chloe Eudaly, who's some people's pick for worst city council member of the 21st Century so far. Runkel's bragging about his "track record," but man, it would be hard to find a worse résumé entry than that one.
When we all sit down to rank the rank in November, Runkel won't be my last choice for mayor. That honor will go to Carmen Rubio. But he'll be close.
The only positive I’ll say about Marshall is that he is a genuinely nice guy. He is also totally inept at anything to do with governing effectivity/efficiently, and isn’t good at following through on tasks and projects.
ReplyDeleteWell that sounds like exactly the pedigree we need in city hall - someone who can't execute, but will be "nice" to all the people trying to push him around and do what's in their own interests instead of the city.
DeleteNo thanks. I'm really starting to think that the kind of politicians we need in this moment, are people smart enough to know it's a bad gig set up for failure, so they would be morons to run.
Agreed. Who would want to be on the Portland City Council? Only highly dedicated people and idiots. The chances of finding capable leaders in the former group are not good.
Deletefailed to add "activist"
DeleteYoung, naive, inexperienced, progressive morons. Check those boxes and Portland has a spot for you. Nothing will happen very gradually.
ReplyDeleteHe looks like a mental patient, in a hospital gown and inside a white brick secure facility. He could also use a hair cut.
ReplyDeletePortland used to be the place young people moved to in order to retire. Now they can move here to run for political office.
ReplyDeleteAnd hire their friends as "campaign staffers," paid for by the public.
DeleteI worked at the City when MetroFi was awarded the opportunity to build a citywide wifi. I can say that aside from staff time, the city spent zero taxpayer dollars on the build out or operation of that network. They were however on the hook for approx $50k to pay for the removal of all the abandoned and unsightly wireless access points. You are correct, the system simply didn't work and the advertisement driven business model never materialized. I recall MetroFi pushing very hard to have the City become an anchor tenant but we reminded them that wasn't a commitment the city ever agreed to make.
ReplyDelete“Aside from staff time.” Heh.
DeleteWait - Rubio takes the cake in a contest that includes Hardesty?
ReplyDelete