You keep me hangin' on

I was getting ready to fill out my ballot when this item caught my eye. For a moment there, I felt a little woozy:

Dear Lord, it's that empty suit of a Multnomah County commisioner who's been the deciding vote, or the fourth vote out of five, on so many bad moves the commission has made over the past eight years. Having contributed pretty much nothing there, why would Stegmann want a seat on the flood district board, which I believe is going to be uncompensated?

After all, she just landed a sweet $150,000-a-year gig as the head of the county Youth and Family Services Division, a job for which she's about as qualified as you or I. She reportedly beat out 55 other people for the position. That provides a nice soft landing now that she's term-limited out of her commissioner's seat, which has paid about the same amount. Go along to get along.

So what's with the flood district all of a sudden? Well, you might recall that earlier this year, the voters awarded that outfit $150 million of pork to hand out to contractors to "shore up the levees," or some such noble task. Stegmann's role will no doubt be to answer to the governor's office regarding the destination of those property tax dollars. She is very good at the answering, as we have seen. When Vice Governor Aimee calls, I'm sure Stegmann will pick up on the first ring.

Meanwhile, Stegmann's replacement on the county commission has already been decided. His name is Vince Jones-Dixon, he's a Black undertaker from Gresham, and I'd be surprised if he didn't go along with the chair, Jessica Chevy Vega, on just about everything. 

And Vega will likely pick up another vote on Tuesday. Shannon Singleton, the face of the status quo on homelessness, is likely to beat Sam Adams in District 2, where I live. Sam the Tram's been going after her in campaign literature, but it's not going to be nearly enough.

Too many people remember Adams's time as mayor of Portland, and he looks and sounds even creepier now than he did then. Then he forgot to get his statement in the voter's pamphlet, which shows you how competent he is. Some days I think he was planted in the race to knock out the other challengers (most notably Jessie Burke) and hand the seat to Singleton.

In the other county commission district, Meghan Moyer is probably going to beat Vadim Mozyrsky. Mozy makes a lot of sense, but there's just something about him that the voters don't seem to trust. Moyer acts like she's a fresh new face, but I doubt that she's going to make waves against the Vega. On matters that count, the chair will continue to get her way, by a vote of either 3-to-2 or 4-to-1, until she's shown the door in a couple of years.

Too bad for Portland. The county will be doubling down on all its counterproductive pet programs, including tent and needle handouts, day spas for addicts, a "deflection" program that wil run nearly empty because it's so lame, and punishing levels of local taxation. Speaking of which, did you see that some private preschools are refusing to take county money because they don't want to sign Vega's loyalty oath?

[Martin] Medeiros, a lawyer with Buckley Law, says he advised his clients not to sign because the contract introduces too much risk into a small business. At the top of Medeiros’ concerns is a portion of the contract dedicated to labor harmony, which is a legal agreement that allows for unionization. Small providers working on slim margins, he says, fear the potential costs of a union workforce.

The county’s contract has two other notable problems, Medeiros says. It requires preschools to follow the most recent version of a Preschool for All program guide, a living document that’s subject to change.

There’s also a provision regarding intellectual property that worries many business owners. In the contract, any intellectual property produced while they contract with Multnomah County is the exclusive property of the county’s. (Ryan Yambra, a county spokesman, says Preschool for All has been open to adjusting this clause when providers express concerns.)

"For all," my eye. "For all who obey Dear Leader" is more like it.

If you were conducting a study of badly run organizations, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more apt example than Multnomah County. Alas, barring some kind of miracle, it's going to stay that way for two more years at a minimum. 

But we'll still have Lori Stegmann around. Lucky us.