The murder-for-hire plot involving transgender (now former) Gladstone Police Sergeant Lynn Benton is just a bit unsavory as well.

Portland is a mess, Milwaukie's going to throw money at a baseball stadium (taxpayer money) and now Gladstone is racist. And what else? Maybe it's time to move out of the cities to the country.

There are a lot of businesses out there who have had to deal with local ordinances which often times are unfair and/or overly enforced.

There are also a lot of folks who have called police or other government agencies for help, only to get poor service or no help at all.

Being the victim of a racial harassment or attack is egregious. Everyone in the community should have been paying attention to it. Just not sure the lack of a proper response, or an aggressive enforcement of ordinances automatically adds up to racism on the part of the city.

Guess I need to hear more facts first. Perception can be as dangerous as the real thing, so here's to hoping things are made right soon.

Light rail will fix all that.

Racism? In Clackamas County? Say it ain't so!

Sleepy little suburbs or no, the good 'ol boys are still running parts of the county like cowboys.

Well at least that piece finally puts a name to the supervisor (Police Chief Jim Pryde) who investigated the background and had the judgement required to think promoting Lynn Benton to Sergeant was a good idea.

Some years back Ron Herndon described Portland as more racist that the deep south (he may have specifically named a city or two in the south) and whoooooooooo boy did the PDX crowd howl and whine. Having been raised in NE PDX it was hard to disagree with Ron but have to admit there weren't many things Ron said over the years that I did disagree with.

I've spent time in the deep south and my wife is from the south. Oregon is not more racist.

The former Chief of Gladstone received a vote of no confidence because of his poor management, not because of the color of his skin. He was a very nice man who shouldn't have been a police chief.

Chief Pryde inherited Sgt. Benton - he didn't promote her. I believe that was the former chief, Frank Grave.

Is it possible the main characters in this story are mistaking the routine antics of a small town police department for racism rather than simply the standard fare at small town police departments? I have seen aggressive code enforcement, etc in just about every small town I've lived in, and seen small town police officers who act like the hall monitor in high school.

Former Chief Frank "Grace", that is.

There are two businesses located immediately next to each other (Arlington Mart and Barrington Store), and they have different owners. If agressive code enforcement was responsible for this, Barrington Store would be closed.