amb

🎯

Quite notable how much our current city council more accurately reflects the city’s demographics and politics after charter reform!

I hope your logging off gives you the sine die vacation you deserve, even if said sine die vacation is just “laundry, taxes, car maintenance and trips to goodwill” the way that mine is currently shaping up 🫡

there have been attempts to pass a bill over the past few years, and then that statewide ballot measure to set up an independent commission to set salaries that died in 2024. Folks obviously still care about the issue but i’m unaware of any active efforts to revive it

I get that the idea of giving ~politicians~ a pay raise is unpopular at a time in which nobody trusts politicians, but when we underinvest in the public service of legislating and governing, all we’re doing is giving special interests extra undue power to call the shots

If you want politicians who are both skilled enough and have the capacity to truly go toe-to-toe with the armada of powerful corporate lobbyists that roam the building - they will simply be overwhelmed if it’s a part time job and they have limited staff capacity

Rep Grayber is a champ, Oregonians are lucky to have her as a politician, and if we want more people as cool as her to be elected officials we have to pay salaries that allow decent and normal people (including those not already wealthy) to actually pursue these careers

whole story (very well reported!) is chock full of all sorts of hot campaign gossip if you’re a freak and into that sort of thing

Bless their hearts

Just saw a group of teens walking around downtown Portland taking photos with one of those 2003 coolpix Nikon cameras that was all the rage when i was their age and they definitely weren’t even born yet

lol what?

somehow that’s weirdly a better outcome

sine dead

Portland’s light rail system hasn’t expanded in ten years, has no plans to do so in the future btw

But don’t worry we’ve got billions lined up to spend on continued freeway expansions!

that's the good shit right there

🫡📻

quittin' time, sine die edition

there's a thing I like to call "load-bearing assumptions", that you don't notice until they're suddenly gone (e.g the air you breath has oxygen in it).

the post-ww2 order is a load-bearing assumption for basically the entirety of american life. trump took a sledgehammer to it in the last 90 days.

and decimated funding for transit, while we're at it

Hoppers (film) - Wikipedia

Just learned that the latest Pixar movie that comes out today is a story about a bunch of animals staging a freeway revolt to protect their local forest glade (!) in a town named Beaverton (!!!!) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoppers...

The Residential Infill Project took 6 years to get through the process. www.sightline.org/2021/08/06/t...

We're now almost 2 years since the Inner Eastside Area Planning Project to the Housing Production strategy. I don't know if BPS has yet realized the new council doesn't want to wait another 4.

Next Thursday’s gonna be fun. In the meantime, if you haven’t already, please go submit testimony in supporting of building tons and tons of more homes in Portland’s central Eastside. The link below makes it easy:

good thread and hearty congratulations to everyone who got this done. this specific post reminds me that i am prepared (conditional on time) to make the case that marx (or at least the surplus approach to value and distribution following him) sets up a case for a supply side approach to housing.

gotta say i love everything about this from @councilordunphy.bsky.social

politics is the art of the possible

well, pending the governor's signature, in ~3 months landlords are no longer allowed to mandate usage of them in oregon

YES

SB 1523 doesn't ban those fees, to be clear, but instead mandates landlords must be willing to receive a check in the mail / provide alternatives to using digital portals. big deal not only for opportunity to avoid monthly fees but also to help seniors/folks with disabilities/limited tech skills

the post appears to have since been deleted, but i just want to flag that @golikehellmachine.com posted about hating those monthly portal rent check fees eight months ago, it caught the eye of my boss, now we've got a bill about it headed to the governors office. posting to policy pipeline is real

Minineapolis City Council passes resolution with comments on MnDOT's I-94 reconstruction planning. They oppose expansion or rebuilding as is. Encourage consideration of at-grade alternatives, reducing vehicle miles traveled, public health, safety, alternative transportation.