I like art but I don't think "Art Enthusiast" qualifies a person to be on the Portland City Council.

Yes, because if there is one thing that experience has taught us, it's that not providing trash bins just means that people won't create trash. Or, if they will, they'll just take it with them. They CERTAINLY won't scatter it around on the ground, no sir.

Government-supported art gives us bad government and bad art

Hmmmm... I seem to recall that the cost to maintain Director's Park, the oh-so-f*cking-necessary park located ONE BLOCK away from Pioneer Square, is about a cool million bucks annually?

There is no hope with the slate of candidates for City Council. It is just a continuation of the same. Notice how not one candidate takes a two-sentence position, or any position on any of Sam's silly endeavors.

But there is hope in the write-in candidacy for Jack Bogdanski.

Make picking up the parks trash part of the City Commissioners' non-delegable duties.

Love the countdown meter in the upper left-hand corner - now, if we only had someone we could elect to whom we could look forward.

Director's Park and the Duck Sports Palace are both examples of "gifts" that look like a great deal until you consider the cost of maintenance and upkeep.

Anything with a lot of glass surface (and that includes the convention center and the "shelters" in the transit mall downtown) is going to be an ongoing cleaning nightmare.

No better way to piss of the collective spirit of Portland. We'll soon be known as 'The City That Stinks.'

These park cuts include the closure of Fulton Park Community Center which has a thriving preschool program. Guess the "education mayor" actually doesn't care about early childhood education. Why are streetscars and sustainability centers such a priority, but not parks and preschools?!?!

Hipsters don't have a need for parks and preschools.....

I wonder whether any of those people who served on the committee going over options of budget cuts, might have asked Nick Fish to stop spending millions in other places not warranted.

Businesses and citizens pleaded with Council last May not to move forward with more spending for a project up at Powell Butte. Fish could have been prudent there, but instead gave the third vote needed to roll out another $80 million!

This council has been a debt producing council and now what??

Our New Year begins with no road paving for five years, no garbage pickup in parks, no this and no that, however, still sucking out more money for that Milwaukie Light Rail and wasteful PWB projects and the list goes on. Oh yes, the Sustainability Center.

What a joke, We need a Sustainability Center, but we cannot sustain our roads or parks!!

Park's Fulton Park Community Center has 4 pre-schools and many day and evening programs. What is even better it is a 1/2 block off Barbur that still has reasonable frequent bus service. It even has parking! Isn't that all "sustainable"?

If Fish can't see that, then he should resign or defeated in the next election.

Larry Legend,
Looked up operating cost of Director's Park, this was from a 2009 article, it may cost more now.

At any event, we have certain parks kept up at the expense of other parks getting short shrift.

Current restrooms should be kept open and new ones should have been built from that last bond measure instead of peppering our parks with porta potties! The article did not mention the ongoing cost of the porta potties?

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2009/09/who_gets_a_park_and_at_what_pr.html

Scheduled to open next month is Portland's newest public park, a $9.5 million urban plaza more than a decade in the making.

Director Park will feature a glass canopy, outdoor cafe seating, water fountain and underground garage. It will bridge the South and North Park Blocks in downtown Portland and serve as a cozier den to the living room that is Pioneer Courthouse Square two blocks away.

And it will cost Portland taxpayers an estimated $475,000 to operate every year.

Cars are evil, but bikes are good

Occupy debate is OK, but not a presidential debate

Bike lanes are needed, fixing streets is too expensive

Spend billions on light rail now, and build a bridge badly in need of replacement later

Slop buckets for the home for all the crap you carry back from the parks

I guess I was always about giving someone the benefit of the doubt. I mean, in the past I have greatly differed with Portland’s general growth and management philosophy, but always assumed it was because I could just not buy into the whole green ideology. Figured it was because I was getting older, and those ideas just seemed so unrealistic and expensive to me.

It seems now however like each decision to manage the city gets more and more preposterous. Almost as though someone is saying to us “you didn’t appreciate me us so we are going to screw you before we go”. I would hate to think that is true, but I can no longer dismiss what is becoming increasingly clear.

Well done Gibby.

On another note.
Has anyone heard whether or not the new Transit Mall is better than the old transit Mall?

I can only assume the absence of any word from the Mall cabal means it isn't so swell.

How shocking is that?