Cueing one of my favorite Savoy Brown tunes, 1 ... 2 ... 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hNjxJCXfis

Official theme song of the Hales "hop on the train" campaign.

Actually, I forgot this would be a better Savoy Brown tune for the streetcar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZndMjqFNTMo&feature=fvst

Heck, at this rate Savoy Brown might wanna be the official Portland band with "Looking In from the Outside" and "Needle and Spoon" (a fitting anthem to the entrepeneurs that infest Old Town.

Did the other guy get a TriMet bus to run by his office, make a special stop and blare its horn too?

And did Wyden get a special flyover of his NYC condo by an Alaska 737 (utilizing special airspace and an Air Force fighter escort) to celebrate his win of direct flights from Portland to Washington National?

Portland is trying to ensure that government of the Insiders, by the Insiders, for the Insiders shall not perish from the State.

Are you kidding? This one really needs to be answered.

Of course, if he can get away with tax fraud in braod daylight, then getting a city agency to sit up and bark for him must be a-okay too.

Does that seem odd or just weird?

Another indication of how rigged local politics are.

Wow. If this isn't a canary in the coal mine, I don't know what is. This, and Homer Williams at the party is simply too much to digest; the continued demise of Portland couldn't have been more blatantly on display.

During one interview last night, Hales gave casual mention to "being a leader" (barf), education (right), gang violence (uh huh), but as the streetcar rolled by and honked, the crowd friggin roared. Enough said; it's clear what this guy's priorities are and who's funding him.

Jack may disagree, but before this is over some of us may become reluctant Smith supporters recognizing that Hales is Katz in new clothing.

I think Hales will do far more damage to Portland than Smith.

"Jack may disagree, but before this is over some of us may become reluctant Smith supporters recognizing that Hales is Katz in new clothing.

I think Hales will do far more damage to Portland than Smith."

Well said!!

Thanks
JK

Lest we forget what damage is yet to be done, here is a link to the extensive "Portland Streetcar System Concept Plan" adopted less than 3 years ago:

http://media.oregonlive.com/portlandcityhall/other/streetcarconceptplan.pdf

Snards post: Look at page 48's map of all the 1,2 and 3 levels of streetcar mania. Were in trouble. But things can change, can't they?

I could never bring myself to vote for either of these turds. Just leave the ballot blank.

Snards,
I got to page 56 or so of the Streetcar Concept plan....it is about all I can stand for now.
Of interest is the trolley to LO, nice and big and already in place.
My only hope is that the federal $$$ will have run out before this and the other routes can be started.
I just don't get why the bus is such an abomination. And I suppose when the electricity becomes too expensive to propel the trolley cars, we can then go back to having horses pull the trolleys around town! How sustainable and iconic is that?

I just don't get why the bus is such an abomination.

The bus is an abomination to the real estate crowd, who would NEVER have a bus in one of their renderings, but who happily feature streetcars. Left unsaid, of course, is that buses are associated with the underclass, whereas the newer and shinier streetcars are associated with a more upwardly mobile demographic.

And busses do not make money for the select few who support the trolleys. Busses are less expensive to install and operate, therefore there is less availability for graft and corruption by the "rail-o-garchs".
The so called planners wouldn't be caught dead on a bus.
I guess what I don't "get" is why we let these people get away with this nonsense.

This may be an odd question, but is it still possible to write in candidates in a run-off?

The bus can move to where it is needed. When the real estate barons buy property they EXPECT it to be served and expect the service to stay put. TriMet does not serve riders. Riders are an unwanted annoyance.
(BTW, I've never had a bad experience with a TriMet driver in my 40 years here. In fact a couple have made extra effort at the scene of an accident. Drivers are another annoyance the TriMet money pump would love to do without.)

When a streetcar is built, the developers, politicians and so on can add on all sorts of ancillary projects and call it part of the project. Just like South Waterfront..."because" of the Streetcar, there's all sorts of new streets, sidewalks, parks, lights...things that can be combined and sold as the "streetcar package".

It's much, much, much harder to justify all those ancilliary stuff with the purchase of buses, because it's easier to ask "what do sidewalks have to do with buses?" Or, why should it cost $40 million to raise a street six feet, widen it, build two massive sidewalks, and landscape a street, for a BUS route? But for a streetcar, it's easy to justify $40 million on a street that goes through nowhere, alongside I-5 where you can't build anything there...

Boy, Hales sure is going to get a nice paying gig after a term or two as Mayor. Just imagine how he'll stack his own deck as Mayor and the rewards he get later.

Wouldn't this be a violation of election law by using public resources (Trimet and City) resources for private political purposes? (it is)

Someone should file a complaint with Ms. Brown, I think. After the PPS fines debacle and the previous CharLIE complaint, and that she has a Republican opponent in the Fall - do you think she would really blow this one off too?

"I could never bring myself to vote for either of these turds. Just leave the ballot blank."

Posted by Usual Kevin | May 16, 2012 1:29 PM

Thus voting for both turds at once, since leaving your ballot blank on the race helps both equally.

I hope, perhaps in vain, that people can let go the personalities a minute and recognize that the system is absolutely rigged to produce these unpalatable choices because of using an inferior voting method. If Portland used instant runoff voting, it would have been a lot easier for a Fernandez to break through the media wall of silence because a lot more people would have been open to ranking someone like him ahead of the three "names.".

In other words, all this talk about "forget it Jack, it's Portland" is nonsense. If conservative midwestern Minneapolis and St. Paul can adopt IRV, portland can adopt it. Or we can meet here again every election night and act just like addicts failing at recovery, not making any fundamental change and only too happy to sit and drink and bemoan the inexplicable nature of the same thing happening to them over and over and over again.

Actually, anyone is able to rent the streetcar for events. I've seen a couple parties on board over the years as the streetcar zoomed past my stop. The streetcar used to have info about this in a brochure on board, but I don't think they do anymore because it's not a very popular service I'd presume.

http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=23941