He called Germany a city. I was in the room. I'm surprised he didn't introduce his cat and second cousin as well.

Bürgermeister Leisetreter

Holy Moly.

Is he planning to put his Navy under fire or police?

Sam Adams should never talk about students or children.

Mr Bog, I was there and the food was good! My notes:

Make a bet Sumitra is mostly made up?

"I'm confident we can deliver on our now-expanded targeted-cluster strategy"

At least he got the cluster part right.

"we need to be the city that invents it, makes it, and sells it to customers around the world."

Sam, do you mean BS?

"Not satisfied to just tamp down internal government spending and fast-track contract spending to create more private-sector jobs, we were also determined to go after those pockets chronic city government dysfunction."

English, please?

"we risk becoming an economic suburb to cities like San Francisco and Seattle"

He speaks in future tense, but I'd be praying to the gods of Intel and Nike if I was Sam.

"We will work harder than any city to keep and grow our companies."

Code for - We'll give bigger subsidies than anyone else.

"We start next year's budget with a one-time $22 million surplus."

At least now I can gauge how much our water bills went up.

A lot of this seems to point to more money/purview for the PDC. Makes me real nervous.

Yet another scary peek into the mind of Sam Adams. How can you claim budget surpluses yet at the same time voters need to vote on property tax increases to keep the schools running? You can if you're Sam Adams, and even scarier...he can make such claims with a straight face.

Dear Mayor Adams, I think you are confused. In Germany, 16 is only the legal drinking age.

Hey moron mayor:

Let Iberdrola go. And Vestas. Your half-assed attempts at appearing relevant on a global stage are just costing us money (with your un-chaperoned trips to countries where the age of consent is 14, or less).

Those companies will soon be subsumed by Chinese corporations, and if you assigned one of your 19-year-old staffers to read the New York Times or International Herald Tribune, you might know it too.

Or, preferably, if you spent some getting your GED, and increasing your own personal literacy, you might be able to reach some enlightenment on your own behalf. The stench of Newport does not have to stay with you forever, even if you are almost 50 years of age -- you can still improve yourself, and leave behind the addictions and lack of educational attainment.

Please try to educate yourself, Mister Mayor. Imagine, next year at the state of the city address, you could announce the attainment of your GED!!!!

PD: PPS schools are financed separately, primarily through state money and local property taxes. The city is a separate financial entity from a bookkeeping standpoint.

We really need to make some "Mayor Creepy World Tour" t-shirts that show all the cities/countries that he's visited.

Apparently the mayor has a college degree, which he went back and got after dropping out.

I've always enjoyed the carefully curated propaganda that is Adams' Wikipedia entry. Check the modification records for fun facts about how often his sycophants have modified it, and where.

PD: PPS schools are financed separately, primarily through state money and local property taxes. The city is a separate financial entity from a bookkeeping standpoint.

Uh huh. Adams can claim success for "results" in the graduation rate...but the schools are underfunded. School funding dollars are a different color...that's right. The City doesn't need to worry about that....

Is that Germany via Thailand?

From a 2002 Oregonian profile of ℠ the Scam:

Official title: Chief of staff for Portland Mayor Vera Katz since 1993.

Unofficial titles: City Hall heavy; Katz confidant and alter ego; half of what the once-divorced Katz calls "the best bad marriage I've ever had."

Age: 39.

Salary: $81,000

Education: Bachelor's degree in political science from University of Oregon. Graduated in 2001 after dropping out at age 20 to take a political job.

Family: Greg Eddie, partner.

Personality type: Extraverted thinking with intuition.

Personality strength: Enjoys working with others. Takes charge quickly and does what it takes.

Personality pitfall: May decide too quickly and appear impatient and domineering.

What people called him in 1992: Machiavelli.

What people called him in 2002: Henry Kissinger. What he says: "On most of the issues, you try to outwork the problem."

Too funny, Garage Wine -- thanks.

Personality type: Extraverted thinking with intuition.

In other words, delusional.

"What people call him in 2012: Sam the Creepy Clown Mayor."

Make that "ex-Mayor."

He'll have a candy cart downtown somewhere then.

With your police department I shudder to think what would happen to the mayor if Portand had anit-jargon laws.

Make a bet Sumitra is mostly made up?

You mean (Soo-MEE-tra)?

Were the repeated phonetic spellings for Sam's benefit or ours? Because I got it the first time.

Comparing himself to Kissinger? Really?

He should have taken more history when he got that degree in Poly Sci. He was the Dick Cheney of his time.

Steve - I'd suggest a little homework. There is a reason why Intel and Nike are located outside city and county limits. CoP and MultCo can only benefit from workers not the companies per se. And the PDC went out of its way to alienate at least one of the two companies. I don't know about the other one but I am kind of guessing it's parallel.

Where is Columbia Sportswear headquartered nowadays? Used to be right there at the east end of the Morrison Bridge. Oh, right....

How many other companies will be leaving our Portland area with double digit water rate increases yearly? Sam doesn't seem to care about that. Does he has in mind to subsidize "some" water rates too, while the residents pay more and more?

oops - Does he have in mind to subsidize "some" water rates too,....

How can you claim budget surpluses yet...

You can if you're Sam...and have Randy in the mix.

"There is a reason why Intel and Nike are located outside city and county limits."

Good point - Portland is an economic suburb of Beaverton and Hillsboro.

There is a reason why Intel and Nike are located outside city and county limits.

Yes, but both are outside of Portland for the same primary reason: amount of available, buildable land. Neither company even bothered looking in city limits, because there isn't enough land to build their campuses. There's a reason Intel's two biggest campuses are called "Hawthorn Farm" and "Jones Farm"; both were built on former farmland.

Also, both companies do, in fact, have offices in the Portland city limits. Intel also has offices in Aloha and Beaverton.

Lastly, Intel's headquartered in Santa Clara, not Hillsboro; the only reason Intel came to Oregon was cheap water. Those big profits go out of state.

"Those big profits go out of state."

I'd disagree, you have 15,000 well-paying jobs that generate loads of income taxes, then those people buy a lot of houses that generate property taxes plus they buy a lot of stuff in general from local merchants.

Wanna compare Hillsboro budget vs. Portland's?

I'd disagree, you have 15,000 well-paying jobs that generate loads of income taxes

Somewhere near half of Intel jobs in Oregon pay less than $14/hour. Look it up. It's not simply engineers and scientists--it's semi-skilled wafer fab techs and support staff. Don't rely on job hunting sites to give you an "average salary" for Intel; "average" is predictably skewed by groupings at the high and low end.

And Intel gets billions in state tax breaks for being here, every year; it's no sweat to drop a few million in the local area to appease municipal bureaucrats. Intel, a Fortune 100 company, needs massive tax breaks ("massive" is not an understatement) in order to locate somewhere? Hmm.

Wanna compare Hillsboro budget vs. Portland's

I think you mean Washington County, not Hillsboro. And in fact, most taxes get waived or mostly eliminated for Intel in the county.

Again, I'm surprised that most folks don't realize the steep, steep cost--in cash and environmental impact--that we exchange in exchange for jobs that exist at the whim of a transnational corporation. When Intel lays off thousands or closes a plant (like they have in the last decade), few seem to decry it; but when Intel promises new jobs, we line up.

Imagine a world where we didn't trade most of what we have for the dim hope of serving at the whim of a transnational corporation.