They're smart to be trying to establish voter say on these issues. And they should be suspicious of metro and trimet. Those agencies are servants of Portland, and a small subset of Portland at that.

At first I thought "Portland creep" meant either Sam or Homer.

All the candidates in the CCC races supporting light rail and URDs are dems. The republicans are spread thin, so it is crucial that one rebel in each race dominates so the dems do not get 50% in the primary. Having only one dem per position is the train/condo lobby's only chance of winning. In Lake Oswego, light rail is about as popular as the tree-cutting ordinance -- it ranks from abhorrent to detestable.

"But voters have eight other candidates [dems] to choose from, including several who support lightrail and pledge a more friendly attitude to regional partnerships in line with current positions."

That is a very telling and disturbing sentence. "current positions" have/are changing. First, there have been several votes on light rail in the past decades that have been ignored. Secondly, there have been recent votes that demonstrates that current positions do not reflect the majority, especially outside the Portland domain. And worse is that for many years citizens have been asking to vote on these kinds of major issues and the politicos have denied voting. What is more democratic-not voting? That is what the other eight candidates are telling us.

And it is sad that those who are trying to represent this change have to be regarded as not displaying a "friendly attitude". Does this mean we shouldn't have change because it's unfriendly? If some regard it as unfriendly, the caustic charges have come more from the sitting politicos and bureaucrats. And the media, but that is changing and this article reflects that. I appreciate that Zheng gave a balanced summary.

The Clackamas elections are more than about Portland Creep, it's also about allowing voting and helping give direction for all of the tri-counties, besides Clackamas.

Yesterday I mailed my ballot with only 2 names marked, Jeff Caton and Bob Vroman. Caton said he has a BA and an MBA so maybe he's smart. He also opposes light rail. Bob Vroman is tax assessor, seems to do a fair job and was unopposed.

If I had known about the anti light rail slate I might have voted for some of them. I'll post my ballot shortly on jcreeknotes.org.