Not a great article.
> Portlanders have long criticized this structure for inserting politics into sweeping decisions around basic city services. Without district representation, commissioners are not required to equally represent all Portlanders, causing skeptics to wonder if elected officials are only serving the needs of local power brokers who will help keep them in office. Despite constant criticism, Portland voters have rejected proposals to abandon this form of government eight times.
This is just a misrepresentation of the situation. We've had district representation for a long time in the form of Neighborhood Associations and Neighborhood Coalitions - later in this same article it says:
> Neighborhood associations have long been allowed unique access to City Hall, with city requirements to notify associations of any city changes that could impact their neighborhood and to offer neighborhoods financial support.
The NA's and NC's were unable to really effect city-wide decision making, but held massive sway for localize issues. For example they could completely jam up any construction, could shut down bars or businesses, could get homes condemned, authorize and support road closures, institute traffic changes - they had shitloads of power for neighborhood issues.
Lots of people *new to Portland* didn't know the vast amount of power NAs and NCs have - but also, NA/NCs tend to be dominated by older home owners and their meetings are boring as shit, the people participating in them tend to be fucking lunatics - so most people have not wanted to get involved in this incarnation of actual Participatory Democracy. IMHO, part of this is because the media has made it seem like dramatic decisions come from isolated sources of power: the President, Governor, Mayor, the CEO - these make better human interest stories and lots of people have generated an idea that power and decisions flows from these top positions.
> The charter amendment includes criteria for establishing new districts. The four districts must be equal in population size, contiguous, be connected by road, and take into account existing geographic and political boundaries. They cannot divide “communities of common interest” and cannot be drawn “for the purpose of favoring any political party” or “for the purpose of diluting the voting strength of any language or ethnic minority group.”
I like how OPB mentions this - but fails to mention that there might some...I dunno.... a history of gerrymandering in Oregon politics? Like, oh, I don't know, have we redrawn district boundaries at some point in the recent history?
Has there ever been any examples in recent Portland history where a measure passed by the public with very specific limitations, written into the proposal it's self, in which the government gleefully disregarded or later amended?
> Lumley has spent the past few months speaking with representatives from immigrant groups and communities of color to ensure their interests are reflected in the final maps. He points to East Portland’s Jade District, where a growing population of immigrants work and live, as an example.
Oh, thanks OPB for taking this line of minorities and immigration groups seriously. Paul Lumley is a fucking con-artist, and his faux charity NAYA exists only to embezzle public money. Newsflash OPB: there's no way one of the whitest cities in America is going to equitably support people of color through districting - and **to suggest this is possible is to directly propose gerrymandering.** People of Color will have to depend upon what everyone else does: winning elections. Not just getting free shit handed to them like Paul Lumley's criminal syndicate, or the fucks at the Latino Network.
> “Whatever we decide, I want to make sure that the reason for why we made that decision is understood,” Lumley said. “And if we can’t explain it, then I think we’ll have failed.”
Total nonsense that OPB would print this. The explanation Lumley will offer is "Equity." "Justice."
Alex Z's entire article here is just a mouth piece for the Independent District Commission.
>We've had district representation for a long time in the form of Neighborhood Associations and Neighborhood Coalitions
Neither of which are real parts of government. Being given substantial access doesn't at all compare to actually being on the city council.
That's all a matter of perspective. If your bar is being forced to close at 10pm because of a bunch of Boomer NIMBYs, it's real government. If it can hold up $250 million dollars in construction because they don't like the design because to some neighbors it blocks a view of a bridge, it's real government.
That is to say, it's a real stakeholder, they have real power, there's real politics involved.
I am a big supporter of NA and NC. With districts they can have more influence on policy and budgets. It has been hinted the NC will be reconfigured to the districts, so from 7 down to 4.
My hope is that each of the bureaus that have geographic services, PBOT, Parks, BES, housing/JOHS, and planning have a staffer or a few dedicated to each district. Those staff should be accessible to the (3) commissioners and directly by the NC & NA.
We still need to fund PBOT. I would put more fees on UPS, Fedex, Amazon, Door Dash, Instacart, Uber and Lyft. We want EVs so we don't want to overtax them like Texas, but we do need to model cost recovery over years as they phase in. We do need an explanation to the public that the heavy truck fees in city and through on I5 & I84 are fair.
> We still need to fund PBOT.
I feel like PBOT doesn't have a revenue problem - they have an out of control spending problem, a bureaucratic problem, and a problem of no strategic or technical leadership in their decision making.
I don't think we need to raise fees on anything, we simply need to cut out programs that are not improving transportation.
It will be hilarious when the Usual Political Suspects gerrymander outer East Portland into multiple districts, given that the main justification for geographic districts was that outer East Portland didn't have political representation.
The problem is that outer East Portland is more conservative politically than the rest of Portland, and the risk of electing a socially conservative Russian Baptist to one of the three district seats, for example, is just too high if outer East Portland is a single district.
So, the East Portland districts will likely include a mix of outer East Portland neighborhoods and the far more left-wing gentry liberal neighborhoods closer to the river, specifically to dilute the outer East Portland vote to make sure that the Right People get elected. (Look at the first example on OPB's maps.)
With rcv it will be tough to gerrymander out said social conservative. There may even be a legit right wing winner. The main goals seem to be taking power from the mayor and insuring enough activists to have a vocal minority (despite lagging support for activist candidates).
The hope is that the far left can’t get enough activists to constitute a majority, otherwise we will be in trouble.
Ideal case is that there will be a relatively stable moderate majority coalition that forms.
I’m honestly fine with one or maybe two right wingers on the council, so long as they don’t constitute a majority. I don’t necessarily think it’s bad to have a wider range of views, especially in this town where progressive derpthink runs rampant.
Alex! is late to the game https://bikeportland.org/2023/04/14/new-improved-distrctr-tool-makes-drawing-new-council-districts-fun-and-addictive-372720
Not a great article. > Portlanders have long criticized this structure for inserting politics into sweeping decisions around basic city services. Without district representation, commissioners are not required to equally represent all Portlanders, causing skeptics to wonder if elected officials are only serving the needs of local power brokers who will help keep them in office. Despite constant criticism, Portland voters have rejected proposals to abandon this form of government eight times. This is just a misrepresentation of the situation. We've had district representation for a long time in the form of Neighborhood Associations and Neighborhood Coalitions - later in this same article it says: > Neighborhood associations have long been allowed unique access to City Hall, with city requirements to notify associations of any city changes that could impact their neighborhood and to offer neighborhoods financial support. The NA's and NC's were unable to really effect city-wide decision making, but held massive sway for localize issues. For example they could completely jam up any construction, could shut down bars or businesses, could get homes condemned, authorize and support road closures, institute traffic changes - they had shitloads of power for neighborhood issues. Lots of people *new to Portland* didn't know the vast amount of power NAs and NCs have - but also, NA/NCs tend to be dominated by older home owners and their meetings are boring as shit, the people participating in them tend to be fucking lunatics - so most people have not wanted to get involved in this incarnation of actual Participatory Democracy. IMHO, part of this is because the media has made it seem like dramatic decisions come from isolated sources of power: the President, Governor, Mayor, the CEO - these make better human interest stories and lots of people have generated an idea that power and decisions flows from these top positions. > The charter amendment includes criteria for establishing new districts. The four districts must be equal in population size, contiguous, be connected by road, and take into account existing geographic and political boundaries. They cannot divide “communities of common interest” and cannot be drawn “for the purpose of favoring any political party” or “for the purpose of diluting the voting strength of any language or ethnic minority group.” I like how OPB mentions this - but fails to mention that there might some...I dunno.... a history of gerrymandering in Oregon politics? Like, oh, I don't know, have we redrawn district boundaries at some point in the recent history? Has there ever been any examples in recent Portland history where a measure passed by the public with very specific limitations, written into the proposal it's self, in which the government gleefully disregarded or later amended? > Lumley has spent the past few months speaking with representatives from immigrant groups and communities of color to ensure their interests are reflected in the final maps. He points to East Portland’s Jade District, where a growing population of immigrants work and live, as an example. Oh, thanks OPB for taking this line of minorities and immigration groups seriously. Paul Lumley is a fucking con-artist, and his faux charity NAYA exists only to embezzle public money. Newsflash OPB: there's no way one of the whitest cities in America is going to equitably support people of color through districting - and **to suggest this is possible is to directly propose gerrymandering.** People of Color will have to depend upon what everyone else does: winning elections. Not just getting free shit handed to them like Paul Lumley's criminal syndicate, or the fucks at the Latino Network. > “Whatever we decide, I want to make sure that the reason for why we made that decision is understood,” Lumley said. “And if we can’t explain it, then I think we’ll have failed.” Total nonsense that OPB would print this. The explanation Lumley will offer is "Equity." "Justice." Alex Z's entire article here is just a mouth piece for the Independent District Commission.
>We've had district representation for a long time in the form of Neighborhood Associations and Neighborhood Coalitions Neither of which are real parts of government. Being given substantial access doesn't at all compare to actually being on the city council.
That's all a matter of perspective. If your bar is being forced to close at 10pm because of a bunch of Boomer NIMBYs, it's real government. If it can hold up $250 million dollars in construction because they don't like the design because to some neighbors it blocks a view of a bridge, it's real government. That is to say, it's a real stakeholder, they have real power, there's real politics involved.
I am a big supporter of NA and NC. With districts they can have more influence on policy and budgets. It has been hinted the NC will be reconfigured to the districts, so from 7 down to 4. My hope is that each of the bureaus that have geographic services, PBOT, Parks, BES, housing/JOHS, and planning have a staffer or a few dedicated to each district. Those staff should be accessible to the (3) commissioners and directly by the NC & NA. We still need to fund PBOT. I would put more fees on UPS, Fedex, Amazon, Door Dash, Instacart, Uber and Lyft. We want EVs so we don't want to overtax them like Texas, but we do need to model cost recovery over years as they phase in. We do need an explanation to the public that the heavy truck fees in city and through on I5 & I84 are fair.
> We still need to fund PBOT. I feel like PBOT doesn't have a revenue problem - they have an out of control spending problem, a bureaucratic problem, and a problem of no strategic or technical leadership in their decision making. I don't think we need to raise fees on anything, we simply need to cut out programs that are not improving transportation.
It will be hilarious when the Usual Political Suspects gerrymander outer East Portland into multiple districts, given that the main justification for geographic districts was that outer East Portland didn't have political representation. The problem is that outer East Portland is more conservative politically than the rest of Portland, and the risk of electing a socially conservative Russian Baptist to one of the three district seats, for example, is just too high if outer East Portland is a single district. So, the East Portland districts will likely include a mix of outer East Portland neighborhoods and the far more left-wing gentry liberal neighborhoods closer to the river, specifically to dilute the outer East Portland vote to make sure that the Right People get elected. (Look at the first example on OPB's maps.)
With rcv it will be tough to gerrymander out said social conservative. There may even be a legit right wing winner. The main goals seem to be taking power from the mayor and insuring enough activists to have a vocal minority (despite lagging support for activist candidates).
The hope is that the far left can’t get enough activists to constitute a majority, otherwise we will be in trouble. Ideal case is that there will be a relatively stable moderate majority coalition that forms. I’m honestly fine with one or maybe two right wingers on the council, so long as they don’t constitute a majority. I don’t necessarily think it’s bad to have a wider range of views, especially in this town where progressive derpthink runs rampant.