I met a young mother this week who had just fled Portland, Ore., with her husband and toddler. She revealed in hushed tones in case someone on the street might hear that she had to get out because drug addicts had set up a squat in her yard and the city wouldn’t get rid of these dangerous people.
She’s not the only one who has fled this city. Businesses have bailed, middle-class families have gotten the hell out, and others who thought it was a safe place to live have reevaluated their priorities, quietly sold their homes, and moved.
Do you know what will fix that? A mayor and a police force willing to do it. What’s not going to fix it is a turd-polishing ad campaign, borrowed state police, more government fentanyl camps, consequence-free open-air drug markets, and tax breaks for friends in high places.
Naturally, those are some of the ideas being promoted by Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, who along with the unfortunately-named Tina Kotek, Oregon’s governor, are working on a secret-blue-ribbon-task-force-committee-to-end-all-committees-we’re-really-gonna-fix-it-this-time confab to “revive” Portland, which was a perfectly fine city before they took over and ran it into the ground.
Portland’s on the doom loop trail like San Francisco. There’s now a 30% commercial real estate vacancy rate in the same downtown area riven by Antifa and BLM riots. The bluest areas of Oregon were closed down during the pandemic, but the riots were encouraged — by the same people.
For these leftists, there’s nothing that more of your money can’t fix. But giving more money to their friends running NGOs or corporations isn’t the fix. Instead of appropriating more taxpayer funds for temporary shiny objects to distract the public, taxpayers should starve Portland of more money.
Recently, a retired Portland commercial real estate executive explained Portland’s doom loop problem. “The problem with downtown Portland is that you don’t want to be in downtown Portland,” he told Willamette Week. And he doesn’t think things will right themselves in the next ten years.
But if Portland’s serious about reviving its downtown it should work with Multnomah County and the state to reduce, if not zero out, all business and property taxes across the board — for commercial, small business, and private properties. In fact, the government owes these people not only a tax reduction but an apology. Through their horrible leadership, these government factotums have brought more harm to these properties than anything else.
All layers of government should be required to reduce the regulations that stymie business growth and make it onerous to start a small business in Portland. Indeed, several small businesses have picked up stakes and moved just out of the city limits to avoid their onerous taxes. In any other world that would be considered a market tell. But apparently, not to the Portland intelligentsia.
And then with some of the $7 billion budget he already runs, the mayor should plus the cop shop that he defunded, begin the task of removing illegal drug addict homeless camps, and arrest drug takers on the streets. Yes, really. This committee, which is “neither a ‘public body’ nor a ‘governing body’ under public meetings laws,” also must put pressure on their George Soros non-prosecuting-prosecutor to begin enforcing the law equally and bring stability to the rickety rule of law in the area.
If leaders are serious about wanting to save Portland, they may have to shed their dogma and do what’s really best for the city and the people in it.
That which is rewarded is repeated. It’s a lesson Portland leaders haven’t figured out yet. And neither have the voters.
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