January 25, 2004
(Updated) Our Mayoral And Council Campaign Round-Up
Note: This post has been updated. Any and all updates appear at the end of the original post.
The main thing to get to from Friday's "City Mattters" column is this item:
The Portland Metro Chapter of the Pacific Green Party of Oregon will hold an 8 p.m. mayoral forum Wednesday at Southeast Uplift, 3534 S.E. Main St. Candidates James Posey, Phil Busse, Robert Ted Hinds and Tom Potter will be there. Commissioner/mayoral candidate Jim Francesconi won't, citing prior commitments.
Chapter co-chairman Jeff Cropp understands Francesconi's absence but is disappointed. Cropp wanted to hear Francesconi explain his council vote last year against a resolution opposing a pre-emptive military strike in Iraq. "I think he might have gotten a grilling over the antiwar stuff," Cropp says.
This is unfortunate, but then again this certainly would not have been the most receptive audience for Francesconi. Portland's left is so fixated on his vote on the antiwar resolution, that it's not difficult for me to imagine a fairly unpleasant experience were he to participate -- not only for him, but also for observers who would prefer a civil conversation.
Not that the contention isnt legitimate, but there always seems to be a rowdy few who don't respect differences of opinion in the name of having a productive discussion.
Meanwhile, also reported in Friday's Oregonian, Sam Adams on Thursday officially launched his bid for a City Council seat:
"I have the experience and the reputation of getting results by working well with people," said Adams, who filed his candidacy in October.
...
That resume meant he dealt regularly with Portland's power brokers and active neighborhood network, giving him a broad database to tap for this campaign. At the same time, it means that as a candidate, he must share the credit for Katz's successes yet avoid being tagged with her failures.
"In time, people are going to recognize more clearly her accomplishments," said Adams, who lives in North Portland's Kenton neighborhood with his partner, Greg Eddie. "Right now, that's clouded by the continuing recession we're in."
I should say that I indeed made my way to this event with the intent of doign some original reporting on it, but (get this) a mistake I made when cutting and pasting the address of his campaign headquarters into the TriMet website to determine what buses to take resulted in me being 8 blocks away and not knowing it until I made a telephone call to have someone check the adress for me.
By the time I arrived at his headquarters, it had already transformed into just a campaign social event, and therefore it wasn't particularly worth remaining. Of course, I also have a particular distaste for random social milling, so at that point the benefits would not have been worth the costs in, well, personal discomfort.
Yes, there is a particular subset of social skills required for reportorial activities which I am still in need of developing.
Meanwhile, Jim Francesconi finally will be officially filing for Mayor tomorrow morning, and releasing his plan for the City. For this, I should actually have some original material sometime tomorrow afternoon.
Update
I should say also that the reason I wanted to get that first item out is because my original post about that debate had Francesconi attending, but not Hinds.
Update
For what it's worth, the prior commitments which prevent Francesconi from participating in the above debate are a African American Alliance meeting and a North Portland neighborhood gathering, both taking place the same day.