"Fail to honor people,they fail to honor you; but of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aims fulfilled, they will all say, 'We did this ourselves.'"

-Lao Tzu

of course, that's the exact opposite of the leadership philosophy of Portland leaders, which is:

"ridicule people in City Council meetings, talk a lot all the time about trivial pet projects, posture in public (and in public restrooms)--then frequently claim credit and brag about what *you* have done."

I've seen other articles in the past where citizens get tired of waiting and go do the repairs themselves. Then the city/county/state come along and tell them to rip it out since they did'nt have the permits do do it.

Wonder if we could get 3% of Portland or Oregon to turn out to help on things:

Nolvak, already well-known in his home country, he came to international prominence last year when he suggested a national clean-up day called Let’s Do It 2008. On May 3 last year, 50,000 Estonians — 3 per cent of the population — rallied to the cause, arriving at the dumps with spades and plastic bags. An operation that would otherwise have taken three years and cost about £20 million took one day (give or take a few months of planning) and cost only £500,000.

Nolvak realised that the clean-up day achieved much more than pristine forests. “On that day, people were happy afterwards. It made me think — this is how work was done 100 years ago,” he says. “It wasn’t just boring old work, it was done collectively and gave us a feeling of connectedness.”

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/04/bartering-services-to-combat-recession.html