Thank you, Jack. You just saved me $165.

Every time I found myself accidently listening to the Portland City Club on OPB, I found myself tuned into a suck-up fest to all things Sam Adams and quickly changed the station.

Irrelevant is the right word, except to the choir.

Lock the bathrooms!

HO. LEE. S**T.

And I do not apologize for my language. Asinine in the extreme.

"Sam is an ideal fit for City Club" That quote says all I need to hear....Pathetic.

At least he is not on the public dole anymore. He won't last, even the west hills crowd will tire of him in that position, as he can't really do anything for them and he is certain to piss someone off.

Way back in the day, the City Club was a conservative, business boosting organization. That was a long time ago.

Now PSU urban studies has some competition for political has beens.

Wow. As an encore, will the City Club going to get Charles Manson a job as a director of a psychiatric hospital?

Or, in other words, nobody outside of Portland would hire his worthless carcass. That's quite the indictment of both him and his tenure within Portland government: if he were worth a plugged nickel, someone outside of Portland would have hired him, if only as a court clown they could pull out to say "You know, this is something Portland would do!"

The speculation on this blog was that PSU was going to hire him in some sort of a position. I have never been a fan or supporter of PSU, quite the opposite in fact. But to give credit due, I have to commend PSU for not lowering their standards to hire that sleaze.

Any respect for the City Club just went down the drain. What Sammyboy does best is spend other people’s money. This new gig puts him in a position to do just that. It is obvious the affluent elitist headship in the organization came up with the mindset to use the influence of this control freak ex-mayor and his collective insider contact list to maintain their lifestyles of the rich and unscrupulous, much of it at the expense of the rest of the community. The reality check is that from this day forward, any report the City Club releases more than likely will be tainted with Sammyboy’s social engineering fingerprints, and therefore must viewed with less than a grain of salt. With such a sleaze ball at the executive helm, the City Club has just become another one of those in the toilet lobby groups. Public officials need to totally wash their hands of this non-elected corporate like organization

"Sam is an ideal fit for City Club"

What, then, does that make the City Club, I asks?

Did they try him on for size?

Sorry - just not very.

Sam will bide his time in that position until the National Association for Sustainability Through Equity and Fiscal Irresponsibility decides to hire a lobbyist.

Can Sam manage 3 people? I doubt it. Even PSU wouldn't take him!
The City Club is just sad.

That's the kind of news that would gag a maggot.

Listen up haters - He's not on the public dole (at least indirectly).

I'd be happy.

I'm just waiting for Randy's next gig where he can exercise his PWB connections.

In my opinion:
Symbolic now of the City Club!
Maybe it is good in that the people of this city can by this announcement get to know more about where the City Club stands. Hiring Sam has put the spotlight on them, and their positions. People may have had positive thoughts about that club as looking out for our community and that may all have been brought down several notches by this hiring.

Dave Lister:Way back in the day, the City Club was a conservative, business boosting organization. That was a long time ago.

How long ago?

Here's whom club members have to thank:

Sam's selection is the culmination of an extensive search conducted by a committee made up of 14 members representing a broad cross-section of the Club's membership. The search committee was chaired by Board Secretary Karen Kervin and included Kathy Black (Research Board vice chair), Kimberlin Butler (New Leaders Council co-chair), Joyce DeMonnin (Friday Forum committee), LaToya Fick (Board of Governors), John Horvick (President Elect), Ted Kaye (Centennial Committee chair), Mary Macpherson (Research Board), Pat McCormick (President), Paul Millius (member), Kourtney Nelson (New Leaders Council chair), David Quisenberry (Research Board), Melody Rose (Immediate Past President) and Sharon VanSickle-Robbins (Acting Executive Director and member).

The search committee evaluated more than 80 applicants from across the U.S. Its recommendation of Sam Adams was endorsed by City Club's Board of Governors on January 14. Sam will assume his new role on January 22.

Of course, he probably won't really be there too long.

I wish I still had a City Club membership so I could resign it in disgust at this decision.

I gave up on the City Club ages ago.

He's going to have a "staff of three." You can just imagine.

Only a staff of three? I can imagine he will soon need an Assistant Director and a PR/Marketing person to make sure we continue to see Sam and his latest on the news regularly.

Randy's next gig?
Working for Sam at the City Club!

http://www.pdxcityclub.org/content/city-club-history
City Club History
The Origins of the City Club of Portland

In the early years of the 20th century, a wave of progressive reform swept the United States. Widespread disenchantment with the entrenched corporate and political elites led to an era marked by Theodore Roosevelt’s “trust-busting,” the struggle for women’s suffrage, prohibition, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, and labor activism. In this milieu a new form of organization emerged, the “city club,” with the first of many founded in Cleveland in 1912.

Oregon was at the forefront of many progressive issues—the initiative & referendum process, direct election of senators, the commission form of city government, protective labor laws, and the minimum wage. And in the autumn of 1916, a small group of men began meeting in the Hazelwood Confectionary & Restaurant in downtown Portland. Well-educated, eager to foster positive change, and dissatisfied with the operation of the city’s public institutions, they felt that existing service organizations gave them no voice.

They decided to form a “distinctive club” along the lines of the new “city clubs” in Eastern cities, which served as community “watchdogs.” The idea of “just another luncheon club” didn’t appeal to them, nor did continuing to meet, eat, and gripe about conditions without doing anything about them.

And so they formed The City Club of Portland. “No mossbacks or drones are wanted,” said the attorney who became the Club’s first secretary. The Club was never to deteriorate into a tool of special interests. To guarantee independence, dues paid by individual members would fund the Club. Neither politics nor money were to suppress ideas and ability. Character, intelligence, training, civic-mindedness, and a desire to help the community were wanted and fostered.

The first constitution and bylaws set down seven purposes of the Club:

Read on for more.

What Godfry said.

Women were not allowed to be members of The City Club until the mid (to late?) 1970's. You should have heard the speeches by City Club members AGAINST allowing women to join. Hilarious, in a pathetic, pardon-me-gotta-go-puke-now, way............

"Neither politics nor money were to suppress ideas and ability." Whoa!

Article last line says it all!

Maybe they should kept the women out. As it is, there appear to be eight women and five men on this committee that brought about this new leadership fiasco.

As Treasurer of the City Club and a regular reader of this blog, I am well aware that Sam elicits strong opinions. Fortunately for the City Club, the positive responses have way outnumbered the critics. The Club's future success will be the best way to address the skeptics' concerns. BTW, I like my job just fine, thanks.

Bill Holmer
Treasurer
City Club of Portland

Mr Holmer,
poking around, I find more than 20 comments on the oregonlive online story, all of which are categorically negative. Perhaps that is a forum not as rarified as you might be used to, and not as flattering as you might like, either. From which source does your statement of overwhelming positive response derive? The ex-mayor Sam Adams diehard fan club, perhaps, who received a mass email announcement from the City Club about the results of its purported "extensive search"? (excuse me while I wipe away the tears of mirth at the idea that there was actually, er, a real search.)

I had a funny experience collecting signatures outside the City Club on a day where the mayor, in the midst of a recall effort stemming from his ethics violations in his adult-teen interactions, had been invited to speak on the subject, of, er, education, the dropout problem, etc. A woman, well-dressed, waiting outside the club, who looked slightly tired, or perhaps medicated, said: "I cannot sign that, but I want you to know i am with you in spirit." All I could think in response was, wow, the spirit of terror has a rancid reek in this town....

Mr. Holmer of the City Club - maybe you can arrange for Oprah Winfrey to interview Sam Adams about all his lies, the people he hurt, the damage he has done to Portland, all the people he bullied and besmerched, lied about and destroyed to protect himself, his income, his drive for power. Sounds like an interview with Lance Armstrong. I have been a member of CC in the past - never again. You guys are pathetic. Is protecting and promoting a liar as bad as being a liar yourself? maybe worse.

While I was not a member of the search committee, I do serve on the Board of Governors which discussed at length the recommendation from the search committee. Any suggestion that the search committee did not conduct an extensive search is totally off base.

The Board of Governors knew that the selection of Sam would generate controversy. Nevertheless, tonight over 40 members of the New Leaders Council (mostly younger members) of the City Club met with Portland Emerging Arts Leaders. The overwhelming feedback about hiring Sam was positive, which is consistent with the feedback received by other members of the Board of Governors.

They decided to form a “distinctive club” along the lines of the new “city clubs” in Eastern cities, which served as community “watchdogs.”

Who are the real community "watchdogs" in our city? Looks like Jack Bodanski is leading the charge and in the spirit of the founding principles of the city club.
Citizens have had to devote hours because there didn't seem to be leadership concerned about the stewardship and assets of our city. Is it OK with the club to see the city being brought to the brink of bankruptcy led by the very person who your club is now installing as your executive director?

. . . Jack Bogdanski is leading the charge. . .

For years The City Club touted itself as "the conscience of the city." Many people knew that that was a joke swallowed only by the stupid and the gullible. The hiring of Sam Adams is the smoking gun - proof positive of just how big of a joke the CC has become. So the "New Leaders" (WTF?) are okay with a guy who goes after teenagers? Oh I'm sorry, how stupid of me, the truth is they don't give s S!!T.

The overwhelming feedback about hiring Sam was positive, which is consistent with the feedback received by other members of the Board of Governors.

It's an echo chamber, then. The guy is radioactive. And as I say, the City Club is now totally irrelevant.

Who does the City Club now represent? While collecting signatures, I concluded the town was roughly divided into fifths on the subject of the occupant of the mayor's seat.
1)people who didn't know who the mayor was
2)people who prefer to remain apolitical, to keep their names off of lists
3)people who didn't like him but didn't want to recall for a variety of reason (personal career considerations/fear of retaliation,fear of instability, concerns for aligning with rabid homophobes, a feeling that Adams won the election and it would be unfair to negate that,etc)
4)people enthralled in the cult of Adams, Sam worshippers
5)people who were absolutely incensed that he could get away with his lies, who would sign a petition a thousand times if they could.

When Mark Weiner did his poll, my observations seemed supported-only one fifth of Portlanders said they would vote for him again.

And now, it appears that the City Club is aligned with the values of one fifth of Portlanders. And what a fifth they are.