A watchful eye
It's been a crazy-busy month and change, and so I'm way behind on my reading. I just the other day got around to the September issue of the fabulous Northwest Examiner, which never fails to provide a thoughtful and informative, yet hard-hitting, take on life in that quadrant of Portland. It's a real gem of a paper, and this issue is no exception.
In addition to doggedly following the ongoing controversy at the Food Front grocery co-op, editor Allan Classen also took on the do-gooders who have turned NW 19th Avenue from Burnside to Hoyt into a demonstration of all the ills currently plaguing Portland streets. Between the copious free food at the Trinity Episcopal Church and the free drug paraphrenalia regularly handed out by the "harm reduction" crowd near the McDonald's on Burnside, it's not a nice, or safe, neighborhood to hang out in any more.
Classen also pens an editorial questioning the zany version of Portland charter "reform" that the voters passed and is now being implemented. In particular, the "rank choice" voting bit that was super-glued into the charter change package looks like trouble to the Examiner.
While receiving the most votes is ordinarily considered the essence of a democracy, the Charter Commission deemed winner-takes-all elections to perpetuate inequality. Instead, the ideal it enshrined is that candidates speaking for narrower subpopulation groups deserve every advantage. Candidates capturing only 25 percent of the vote will be declared winners. There goes any need to compromise with more broadly held views.
Candidates unacceptable to a majority of voters may get on the new council. Can that create a stable, functioning political system? Or will it become another idealistic experiment that falls under its own weight? Government that does not represent the will of the people will—and should—fail.
He's being far too polite there.
Anyway, in a world where journalism is dying, the Northwest Examiner is really something special. I must get to the October issue early, before the ballots arrive.
Trinity’s do-gooder attitude doesn’t fit well with the lack of control of the antisocial behavior on its property.
ReplyDeleteBest taker I’ve seen yet on ranked choice voting. I predict a lot of turnovers on the new council with this 25 percent threshold for getting elected. Lots of candidates getting elected that are the flavor of the month so to speak then getting replaced at the next election with the newest, latest flavor.
ReplyDeleteThe problems with rank choice voting are too numerous to completely list here--but just remember that the charter commission's work was done in the midst of the city's general craziness in '21 and '22...and that the commission's executive director, Julia Meier, was a product of the City Club and the Coalition of Communities of Color (who got a big contract to do the commission's "listening.") The commissioners were a who's-who of progressive spear carriers, union hacks, apparatchiks from the LGBTetc movement, etc., riding high on the 'defund the cops' hysteria and amid Covid lockdowns from our Dear Governor.
ReplyDeleteSorry, but Richard Cheverton and Portland Dissent had Classen beat a long time ago on the subject of Rank Choice Voting.
ReplyDeleteClassen isn’t as brave as he pretends to be. I learned first-hand that he will easily swallow a hit-piece by The Oregonian calling someone “racist” — without putting a single question to The O’s target.
The sheer insanity of both pushing "safe drug use" and rank voting both smell bad:
ReplyDeleteadjective: offensive in odor or flavor- especially : rancid
“Harm reduction” should be outlawed. All it is doing is further enabling these deadbeats to continue abusing and causing problems for the community.
ReplyDelete