Damned if you do; damned if you don't. How many people bitching about Potter's lack of accomplishment are the same ones who bitched about Katz's boondoggles?

I'm happy for Tom and his family. I'm not so keen on Portland's future under Trammie.

I'm serious about the collective nervous breakdown. People around the guy rarely appear happy or under control -- especially Adams himself.

Sure, there have been failures, but compared to what Vera Katz did to Portland, what Jim Francesconi would have done, and what Sam the Tram is getting ready to do, Potter's been a pretty good mayor.

Faint praise

Potter will be most remembered for turning City Hall into a public toilet; establishing the city as a santuary for illegal immigrants; all but called the police profiling racists; being too involved with his foreign vacations to care what happened in town; reportedly caused a big drop in the city's convention business; almost blew Pamplin's Ross Island deal; bashed Major League Baseball; appointed PDC members that are clueless about the needs of downtown businesses, and we could go on and on.

Potter hasn't done anything much but march in parades... This was his only legacy as police chief, so why would anyone expect more from him as mayor.

Will he be there for the new light rail Transit Mall ribbon cutting?
Won't that be all warm and fuzzy?
How special.

bashed Major League Baseball

Yea! That was another major boondoogle coming down the pike at us.

appointed PDC members that are clueless about the needs of downtown businesses

Well...since 'downtown businesses' have been catered to for the past 30 years, maybe it's time to do some economic stimulus somewhere else in the city. Of course, there is no guarantee that his appointments will have any better understanding of citywide businesses.

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. - Winston Churchill

Greg C

I suspect that you are right about an Adams mayoralty (i.e., "what Sam the Tram is getting ready to do"), but given the fact that he has been campaigning since the '04 elections would suggest, of course, that he is impossible to beat.

The upside is that since Bob "bring back the Boss" Ball has not yet been able to strengthen the mayor's powers, a more level-headed individual elected to his council seat can easily balance out his tramning tendencies. Theoretically, at least.

Bob Ball as a politician appears dead on arrival to me.

Shadow, now that Potter is retiring, would you please refrain from commenting here? Your mission in life has been fulfilled.

I would still vote for Potter like the majority of Portlanders. You're right, he may have done nothing, but he didn't raise taxes or anoint another new favorite developer. Trying to manage a cabal like Sten, Adams and Leonard would make the Mean Girls look fun.

Just wait until Sammie gets elected and starts spending on his buddies and pet projects to compensate for a childhood without money. Just wait until Chris Smith tries to get elected and actually succeed. We'll be asking San Diego city govt for a loan.

Potter blew it with me when he listened to the BS about Trammel Crow's Alexan tax abatement for "affordable housing" [that wasn't] and voted with Sten to approve the tax waiver. Whew, that was some kind of no brainer to miss.

id rather have a man jack who is doa as a pol than a lifelong pol who tries to convince us he isnt one.

so....all you Portlanders....get out and vote.....let's see if you can come up with someone better than Sam.....to think I'd even reflect on ol' Ivancie.

I kinda liked Uncle Frank as mayor: by no means a progressive, but the business of the city got done on time and on budget.

The problem I see is the most active politicos in this city will want a progressive clone and nobody else, period.
Should anyone who's genuinely independent and savvy attempt a run they'll be tainted right out of the gate for not being supportive of all of the exact same things as every other current Portland politician. Right?

Roy Jay would make a better mayor than Sam Adams.

A banana would make a better mayor than Sam Adams.

Sam Adams as mayor will be the continuation of Vera Katz incarnate. People who work closely under him describe him as something between a despotic tyrant and a fart in a skillet. If you think we've seen boondoggles so far, you ain't seen nothing yet.

What I wonder is when the people of Portland will wake up and smell the roses. It was so obvious they were being played. Just like the national political scene. It was so obvious, anyone with half a brain knew what the announcement was going to be when the Fluff piece on Adams appears in the Oregonian with the forgiving editorial for Grampy. If you think you have a choice think again. You have hand picked and positioned politicians in Portland, supported by the cabal. The only way you are going to get different is to get active locally in the neighborhood associations. As funky as it sounds there used to be organizations that supported community. Folks need to think about quality of life and understand that it is not what some Madison Ave NY ad agency sells you as the American Dream of stuff and more stuff, it is a quiet drink in your back yard with neighbors talking about how you can turn a blighted lot into a place for the kids to play, then with your neighbors lobbying to get a little bit of your tax money headed in that direction. The purpose of taxes is not to enrich a few people, it is for the people to equitably contribute to provide necessary services to the community they live in an equitable way for all. Any one who has ever lived in a smaller town knows this and how simple it is and how it should work. If you look into some of these deals and who benefits while the future is mortgaged on not only the national level with Bush, but locally as well. The politicos are generational now, Nick Fish, you can read about his grandfather a New York Politico in the book about the Plot to overthrow FDR and the new Deal. Bushies, Romnies, Gories, all second generation at least. Raised in the political Disneyland of DC, where reallocation and corruption are the norm. Is it a wonder we have things so seemingly out of control, and locally we have Tramie for our next mayor the surrogate son of Vera and Neil.

Jack, yes our mission was to expose the real Tom Potter to the public, and we used your blog to let him and his cronies know that the truth would surface in a campaign. As you knew, we had undeniable facts about Potter's past lies, misconduct, abuses and more. How a young boy's death was not going to stop Potter from seeing Chichen Itza in 1992. You read the truth for yourself, saw the photos. Most of the truth you deleted because you knew it would raise questions. You too criticized "grampy" and "McPothole" but kept his secrets. What's your mission?

Portland needs a mayor who will use City money efficiently and effectively and not squander time and effort on projects that don't come to fruition. I don't think Bob Ball is a politician dead on arrival, he has a reputation as a progressive thinker who reshaped a forgotten part of Portland and hopefully he can do it with City Hall too.

******I don't think Bob Ball is a politician dead on arrival, he has a reputation as a progressive thinker who reshaped a forgotten part of Portland and hopefully he can do it with City Hall too.*****

That's Bob Ball the Pearl District developer right. The one whose projects have taken advantage of every tax break the City & State can offer, right. The one who built the now falling apart Marshall Wells Lofts.

Bring him on. The Mayoral campaign would be so entertaining with him in the mix. I can hardly wait.

Greg C

Holy crap, "Shadow." I never heard of that. Discuss.

Godfry, you're right-downtown Portland has certainly "been catered to for the past 30 years". You would think after over 30 years of four urban renewal districts just in the downtown area that downtown would be fixed. Think of all the tax dollars drawn from the downtown URAs that have bleed the rest of the city. Then the politicians still have the guts to claim we need more and extended downtown URAs.

Holy crap, "Shadow." I never heard of that. Discuss.

No, please don't.

"Shadow" is a city employee (probably a policeman) who uses a fake name and e-mail address and claims to have lots of dirt on Potter. Rather than subject myself (who give my real name on this site) to the lawsuits that would follow, I haven't been printing the details of his allegations here. And we are certainly not going to start now.