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Last week, WW began posting video from our endorsement interviews in more than 30 local races. One of those clips drew significant attention. In it, Milwaukie Mayor Mark Gamba said Portland struggles to remove trash from homeless campsites because the city’s system of government gets in the way of expertise and accountability. “Also,” Gamba added, “Ted [Wheeler] is in over his head.” Any local mayor levying sharp criticism of another is bound to draw some attention, but Gamba hit a sore spot: the proliferation of encampments and Portland’s failure to swiftly clean up after them. Here’s what our readers had to say:
Michael M, via wweek.com: “Mayor Gamba’s intelligent, honest critique of Portland’s form of government should he heard very, very clearly. Portland’s shortcomings, some due to painfully inefficient bureaucratic structure and some to simple, unfortunate incompetence, are becoming an embarrassment. And an annoyance to many of us who daily have to deal with the agonies—emotional and visual—of our houseless folks. The money is there, the structures and competence are not.”
Gabby, via Twitter: “Portland’s government is a nightmare. I know from nightmares, having lived in Chicago for 21 years. Where aldermen clamor for control and engender delay, Portland’s commissioners play an endless game of ‘not it.’”
Smoked Armadillo, via wweek.com: “The structure doesn’t help, but I don’t think it’s the reason. We’re the last large city to use such a system. So places like Los Angeles and Seattle don’t have our system, yet the encampment epidemic in Los Angeles is pretty similar.”
D B Coolper, via Twitter: “You don’t have to travel too far beyond Portland to avoid the effects of Portland’s policies. It goes to show you just how bad those policies are in contrast to everyone else’s.”
christopolis, via wweek.com: “Ted is over his head?
“Any human being would be. A DA office that can’t prosecute anything but major felonies. A legalized drug system with illegal distribution. A system that is disproportionately attuned to perpetrators’ needs and wants. You have the recipe for a massive infestation of gang activity. The homeless problem is a distraction from what is going to be lots of blood on the streets.
“The spiral down is accelerating and neither Ted nor Churchill nor a new commissioner structure could stop it.”
Yeshuan, via wweek.com: “I deliver for Amazon. I can tell you that there are more than a few trailer parks all over Portland that look just like homeless encampments (abandoned old folks and the seriously challenged).…We need to create a litter corps and give the homeless, challenged and disenfranchised jobs cleaning up the city. Why isn’t Portland as pristine clean as Tokyo? The homeless spend all their time gathering recyclables. Why not reward them for cleaning the city? Maybe $5 per 30 gallon bag of litter?”
Aulations, via Reddit: “Our garbage system is STUPID. We have a stupid franchise system with 15 different vendors. It makes it super hard to hold anybody accountable. It’s also a major reason we don’t have many public trash cans. We need a unified garbage system that takes care of the entire city so I don’t have to call Metro just for illegal dumping. ARGH.
“Also, we could throw plows on the trucks if we ever get snow.”
LETTERS to the editor must include the author’s street address and phone number for verification. Letters must be 250 or fewer words. Submit to: PO Box 10770, Portland, OR 97296 Email: mzusman@wweek.com
