March 01, 2003
City Tells Legislature to 'Shut Up'
Having been hit with the first strike in the latest battle between rural and urban Oregon (as members of the Legislature threaten to seize some of the revenue to be raised under it's plan to save Portland's school year), the city begins to respond in kind:
"Not only do they seem incapable of fixing the problem, they want to drag everybody down with them," Portland Commissioner Dan Saltzman said. "There seems to be a bitter resentment of anything Portland."
Said Mayor Vera Katz, "It's ridiculous for the senator or others to point fingers at us now for doing something that they should have been doing."
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Asked if the move could be fatal to new taxes, Commissioner Randy Leonard said, "Potentially, if people don't shut up down there and quit dreaming out loud about what they'd like to see happen to the city of Portland."
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"The state's economy is on life support, and he seems dead set on killing the patient," Sten said of Ferrioli. "There's no way we're going to be able to keep carrying our weight of the economy if we can't fund our schools."
In the end, what this comes down to is more cynical political maneuvering from some of the same people who constantly refuse to fund public education, and who publicly claimed that the failure of Measure No. 28 would not cause any problems whatsoever. In the end, it's about stoking the flames of the rural/urban split. In the end, it's about screwing over Portland for their own professional benefit.
Comments (1)
jack bog on 02 Mar 2003
Perhaps Portland residents should start boycotting the businesses and tourist attractions represented by the more offensive legislators. Even a rolling boycott of a few months at a time would get attention.