What a !*@# joke. And that is just her tab; if we include the tabs of the people she defeated along the way, what is the real cost?

Awesome!

I get to spend my tax dollars on cars I don't want to buy AND on candidates I don't want in office ...

Man , she better take my phone call for that much! how much is that a day anyhow ???

Yeah, because paying for candidates AFTER the election when they pay off their backers has proven to be so cheap, right?

Good ol' Chris Smith just don't give up - no matter how wrong he is.

The asection on the CC hotel was better:

"After a closed-door meeting this week with the proposed hotel’s development team and others, Adams said, “I’m not willing to give up on the project yet.”

I guess Ashforth gave him a pep speech and sent him on his way, huh?

Holy cow man, that's, like, 84 cents for every man, woman and child in Portland!

It's an outrage, I tell you, an outrage! I want corporate money back in my local elections, and I want it now!!

Seriously, folks, y'all are going to be spending a lot more gilding cages at the zoo than on all the publicly-financed candidates combined.

The city attorney and city auditor both have complied with the law that requires them to prominently post a notice in big bold type that makes it crime for government in Oregon to influence elections for public office.

You've got (I've got) 30 days from certification of the results to whine in court, and prevent Amanda from serving. But the city attorney or DA could do it too, all on their own. And so too the AG on behalf of the secretary of state. If not one of these public officials are willing to step in then a judge too is likely to say "oh well, it is a political matter and not something that one solitary citizen can disturb as a relator" (notwithstanding the complete lack of ambiguity in the statute).

Seems like a bargain compared with the other Distinguished Commissioners.

Throw in the soft costs for administering the VEO program, and her successful election cost well over half a million bucks. Amanda Fritz will only be worth it if she persuade Saltzman and Fish to block at least one $85 million dollar boondoggle.

My guess is that she'll cast a few symbolic votes (4-1), and then vote with the big boys on most of the stuff that matters (like continuing the light rail/PDC/condomania scam).

I don't think the public employee unions have anything to fear from VOE elected candidates.

Steve R,

The difference between the zoo and public-funded elections is that she uses tax payer money to obtain a full time job, which only benefits her and not the public. Just because she was elected with public money does not mean she has no special interest constituency. It just means her special interest constituency did not have to help pay to get her there.

Because the public funds directly benefit her by allowing her to campaign for a job, her "gain" is the $482,000 public grant, plus her annual salary for the length of her term, and plus benefits. Too bad the IRS does not tax her for the $482K.

A larger concern is that even $482k would have been wasted money if Fritz had run against an incumbent. The only reason any VOE candidate had a fighting chance to win this seat is because there was no incumbent.

If Earl ever decides to hang up his spandex, then Mayor Adams can inherit his well worn bike seat (metaphorically speaking).

And Nick Fish will run for Mayor.

Randy will leave town just before the PFPPTB (Portland Fire and Police Pension Time Bomb) explodes.

Saltzman will marry a hot viticulturalist from Napa Valley and move to Dundee to grow chardonnay (Sonoma and Napa will be growing nothing but Concords by then).

If we're lucky, all four City Council seats will become available at once, and the VOE True Believers will get their clean money City Council.

Otherwise, it'll never happen.

Well, we can settle it once and for all with a vote. The promise of a vote in 2010 was specious. A current council cannot bind a future council to anything.

Amanda has pledged to see it on the ballot. Let's call on the others to get it on the ballot too.

I, a conservative, worked with Amanda for months on her 2006 campaign because I honestly believe she's different than the other Portland politicians. I sure hope she proves me right.

HOW DISGUSTING IS THIS? PRETTY DAMN DISGUSTING. Thanks Eric Sten you P****

If Amanda derails the development train, it will be worth every penny.

I ended up voting for Amanda, but this really is ridiculous. Her husband is a prominent M.D. in the Portland area. She was an RN, but hasn't worked in years, instead living the life of an affluent house wife with the time to get involved in charities and network into Portland's upper crust.

Is this the kind of person VOE was supposed to help participate in politics? So far it seems like the only people who VOE has got into office have been millionaires. We know Sten's net worth is $1M+ and I'll bet Amanda and her hubby are worth $1M+ with his practice, their house, investments, etc.

Yet the over-educated, non-profit worker who earns a median wage is just as excluded and handicapped by the system as before VOE.

I don't beleive that losing the general election (as happend to Charles Lewis) should be conflated to "excluded and handicapped by the system".

Any campaign finance mechanism is going to promote or diminish the odds of a particular candidate: that doesn't mean the mechanism produced the winner.

In the case of VOE, the legal prohibition on outspending a VOE incumbent is likely to prevent the challenger from winning (the incumbency advantage is too great).

Unless the incumbent is a real turd, like Francesconi. Granted, Jim wasn't the incumbent Mayor, but he was already a member of the City Council, and he was the presumptive frontrunner until Potter (who also had nee-incumbent status as former Chief of Police) gave him the pile driver.

If Amanda derails the development train

Will never happen.

The $482 thousand for Amanda's election is not the full cost. I would add in Amanda's 2006 VOE taxpayer money of $120 thousand + -. It was her way of getting voter recognition on the taxpayer's dime, then run again after she lost. That's the real cost.

lw,

If you check the math, you'll see they've already included the 2006 expenditure.

"She was an RN, but hasn't worked in years, instead living the life of an affluent house wife with the time to get involved in charities and network into Portland's upper crust."

For the record, Amanda was working a night shift at OHSU until sometime late summer or early fall of this year.

A couple things ... after full-disclosure that I participate in and enjoy Amanda's blog; (we haven't met; I don't know her personally, well enough, to be on a first name basis, it just seems Amanda sounds better than Ms. Fritz).

For one: What are her principles and positions on issues and, in a word, character, which her detractors (here) so strenuously oppose or object to? or say isn't representative of them? I mean, does she leg-trap reindeer on her rooftop or something?

For two: She apparently spent less taxpayer money getting elected than Sorry Failin did getting dressed, (in a costume disguise of being electable).

...she uses tax payer money to obtain a full time job, which only benefits her and not the public.

That's absurd on its face. If you don't believe city commissioners serve the public, it's silly to even talk of VOE. We should be talking about abolishing all government altogether, and how we should be stockpiling fuel, guns and ammo.