Steve's argument is dead on. Increasing housing (and commercial) densities in transit corridors -- or transit corridors we can create in low-income neighborhoods -- is key to long-term embedded carbon efficiency. Also to transit economic efficiency and growing load factors. I know this was an issue that Steve took on when serving as a Portland City Commissioner, and got bludgeoned for it by NIMBY adherents churning up out of existing single-family neighborhoods (I know because I came to testify for opening up zoning, and heard 90% of witnesses "defending" their neighborhoods). The first-up transportation carbon solution is electric vehicles, but the enduring solution is urban design that enables people to get to services, recreation, etc. without starting up the car. So . . . go Steve, and Tina!
Great column, Steve. But I think there's a big difference between enacting policies and implementing them. The single-family zoning change was an important policy innovation. But it relies on cities to implement. So too with the carbon-reducing energy goals, which rely on strategies to be developed by the utilities. But, closer to home, when implementation (of, for example, pandemic relief assistance) and meeting deadlines (such as the 1/03 goal for standing up the family/medical leave program) are dependent on state government, we've had more failures and delays than is excusable. This is not Kotek's or the legislature's fault. It's up to the governor to get these things done when the legislature hands off to her agencies new programs to deliver and new budgets to spend (although, IMO, Kotek and her leadership team have seemed reluctant to demand accountability from her office for failures and delays). My point is that the Democratic candidates for governor will have to prove their chops for getting things done. They will differ in only minor ways on policy, as you point out. But the question that I think will define their candidacies is how they can make state government work better and turn a progressive To Do list into a progressive Well Done list.
Great points Steve, but I think Tim Nesbitt’s point above is why a lot of people who pay attention to policy are looking for options: “It's up to the governor to get these things done when the legislature hands off to her agencies new programs to deliver and new budgets to spend (although, IMO, Kotek and her leadership team have seemed reluctant to demand accountability from her office for failures and delays).”
For example: Marty Wilde’s recent piece about the Employment office delays and Paid Family Leave, and many advocates' experience with the Dept of Ed, have a lot of people asking: where’s the follow through? When does the legislature seek audits of the agencies? When they fund programs, why do they not fund assessments, or if they do, why don’t they do anything with them?
I would love to see any candidate not just name policies, but say that they are committed to audits in several government departments. People want to know that if they are paying taxes, those taxes aren’t going to committees and meetings masquerading as work—which is often what the legislature does—set up a committee to study something and then people get paid to go to a lot of meetings and nothing happens. I’ve been in those meetings as the unpaid advocate and I always make a calculation on my napkin of how much the government employees where just paid (with benefits) to sit there. Did 7 people really need to be included just so they could say no?
This is how I want the next governor to be thinking:Could this $5,000 we just spent on a meeting instead be spent on a kid who needs high dosage tutoring or towards a housing voucher. I know that’s not exactly how it works, but I want that mentality in my next governor. I want urgency around fixings structural issues and personnel issues that get in the way of good policies.
Any candidates listening: Start with a dashboard for ESSER school funds. Tina Kotek could do this in the February session. Georgia and Arkansas are doing it. Let people see how the districts are using $1.7 Billion to help kids. Transparency should be a win for Democrats—but not if the money isn’t being spent on turf and floor scrubbers.
I don’t know that technical “audits” are necessary but “assessments” certainly are. Problem is that unless a former mayor or governor is running we rarely have candidates with administrative experience. Well, I guess being AG or Secretary of State kind of counts, those are big offices. I don’t know how big the Treasurer’s office is.
Actually he is for limited gun regulations and gee Tom McCall was an environmentalist. But Eastwood would look at Kotek and choke before saying get off my lawn.
Why? What exactly do you think Eastwood would object to? Do you think Eastwood, who calls himself a libertarian, is a strong supporter of single family zoning regulations? Do you think he thinks paid family leave would destroy America?
I did. He didn’t name a single issue. He just said he was tired of “political correctness.” And by 2020 he had soured on Trump and endorsed the Democrat Bloomberg,
Lots of people soured on Trump and his mouth but after watching senile Biden for a few months many would hold their nose which is why recent polls show Trump beating Biden. Hopefully it will be someone better as Biden is already done.
I think Clint Eastwood is well aware that liberals watch his movies. I don’t recall him ever saying he doesn’t want our money. And what values do you think Tina Kotek doesn’t have? Which of the Ten Commandments do you think she doesn’t believe in?
Watching Kotek shove bad liberal bills on the entire state, watching her break her promise in the legislature, and listening to the beliefs she espouses might fit Portland, the laughing stock of Oregon, but travel to most parts of Oregon and voters equally despise Brown and Kotek.
So you can’t name a single actual thing she has done or “belief she espouses” that Eastwood would disapprove of. You’re sure she imposed “bad liberal bills” but you can’t name even one.
She broke her word so she could gerrymander the state. I love how Democrats are screaming about gerrymandering but not a whimper about Oregon. That’s one. The list is long of fees she pushed that are actually taxes but afraid to call them that. But I understand you have the same Portland attitude and do not understand. News reports. Sep 20, 2021 — House Speaker Tina Kotek on Monday backed out of a deal granting minority Republicans equal say in the state's redistricting process, ... Another report, Kotek is backing out of a deal (Bynum) to help her become the successor. Obviously she cannot be trusted.
I would say the Kristoff's case is that he is a person with a track record of having an ability to get folks who might not be part of the same tribe to empathsize with one another. Think of all teh non-profits around the world he has gotten people to donate to even though they might not have any physical connection to them. He is trying to be a bridge builder between rural and urban oregon. His narrative is about connecting urban people to our rural neighbors. I think this is a pretty strong selling point. I also think Kotek's support of ODOT and freeway widening is a non starter for me in a time when we need climate action.
Steve's argument is dead on. Increasing housing (and commercial) densities in transit corridors -- or transit corridors we can create in low-income neighborhoods -- is key to long-term embedded carbon efficiency. Also to transit economic efficiency and growing load factors. I know this was an issue that Steve took on when serving as a Portland City Commissioner, and got bludgeoned for it by NIMBY adherents churning up out of existing single-family neighborhoods (I know because I came to testify for opening up zoning, and heard 90% of witnesses "defending" their neighborhoods). The first-up transportation carbon solution is electric vehicles, but the enduring solution is urban design that enables people to get to services, recreation, etc. without starting up the car. So . . . go Steve, and Tina!
Great column, Steve. But I think there's a big difference between enacting policies and implementing them. The single-family zoning change was an important policy innovation. But it relies on cities to implement. So too with the carbon-reducing energy goals, which rely on strategies to be developed by the utilities. But, closer to home, when implementation (of, for example, pandemic relief assistance) and meeting deadlines (such as the 1/03 goal for standing up the family/medical leave program) are dependent on state government, we've had more failures and delays than is excusable. This is not Kotek's or the legislature's fault. It's up to the governor to get these things done when the legislature hands off to her agencies new programs to deliver and new budgets to spend (although, IMO, Kotek and her leadership team have seemed reluctant to demand accountability from her office for failures and delays). My point is that the Democratic candidates for governor will have to prove their chops for getting things done. They will differ in only minor ways on policy, as you point out. But the question that I think will define their candidacies is how they can make state government work better and turn a progressive To Do list into a progressive Well Done list.
Great points Steve, but I think Tim Nesbitt’s point above is why a lot of people who pay attention to policy are looking for options: “It's up to the governor to get these things done when the legislature hands off to her agencies new programs to deliver and new budgets to spend (although, IMO, Kotek and her leadership team have seemed reluctant to demand accountability from her office for failures and delays).”
For example: Marty Wilde’s recent piece about the Employment office delays and Paid Family Leave, and many advocates' experience with the Dept of Ed, have a lot of people asking: where’s the follow through? When does the legislature seek audits of the agencies? When they fund programs, why do they not fund assessments, or if they do, why don’t they do anything with them?
I would love to see any candidate not just name policies, but say that they are committed to audits in several government departments. People want to know that if they are paying taxes, those taxes aren’t going to committees and meetings masquerading as work—which is often what the legislature does—set up a committee to study something and then people get paid to go to a lot of meetings and nothing happens. I’ve been in those meetings as the unpaid advocate and I always make a calculation on my napkin of how much the government employees where just paid (with benefits) to sit there. Did 7 people really need to be included just so they could say no?
This is how I want the next governor to be thinking:Could this $5,000 we just spent on a meeting instead be spent on a kid who needs high dosage tutoring or towards a housing voucher. I know that’s not exactly how it works, but I want that mentality in my next governor. I want urgency around fixings structural issues and personnel issues that get in the way of good policies.
Any candidates listening: Start with a dashboard for ESSER school funds. Tina Kotek could do this in the February session. Georgia and Arkansas are doing it. Let people see how the districts are using $1.7 Billion to help kids. Transparency should be a win for Democrats—but not if the money isn’t being spent on turf and floor scrubbers.
I don’t know that technical “audits” are necessary but “assessments” certainly are. Problem is that unless a former mayor or governor is running we rarely have candidates with administrative experience. Well, I guess being AG or Secretary of State kind of counts, those are big offices. I don’t know how big the Treasurer’s office is.
Eastwood would not appreciate being used for a far left liberals who has no values he would recognize.
Also, Eastwood is not very conservative. He’s for gun control and same-sex marriage and I think he’s something of an environmentalist.
Actually he is for limited gun regulations and gee Tom McCall was an environmentalist. But Eastwood would look at Kotek and choke before saying get off my lawn.
Why? What exactly do you think Eastwood would object to? Do you think Eastwood, who calls himself a libertarian, is a strong supporter of single family zoning regulations? Do you think he thinks paid family leave would destroy America?
He would oppose Oregon forcing things on people. Go read his comments on Clinton and Trump when he said compared to Clinton, Trump was onto something.
I did. He didn’t name a single issue. He just said he was tired of “political correctness.” And by 2020 he had soured on Trump and endorsed the Democrat Bloomberg,
Lots of people soured on Trump and his mouth but after watching senile Biden for a few months many would hold their nose which is why recent polls show Trump beating Biden. Hopefully it will be someone better as Biden is already done.
I think Clint Eastwood is well aware that liberals watch his movies. I don’t recall him ever saying he doesn’t want our money. And what values do you think Tina Kotek doesn’t have? Which of the Ten Commandments do you think she doesn’t believe in?
Watching Kotek shove bad liberal bills on the entire state, watching her break her promise in the legislature, and listening to the beliefs she espouses might fit Portland, the laughing stock of Oregon, but travel to most parts of Oregon and voters equally despise Brown and Kotek.
So you can’t name a single actual thing she has done or “belief she espouses” that Eastwood would disapprove of. You’re sure she imposed “bad liberal bills” but you can’t name even one.
She broke her word so she could gerrymander the state. I love how Democrats are screaming about gerrymandering but not a whimper about Oregon. That’s one. The list is long of fees she pushed that are actually taxes but afraid to call them that. But I understand you have the same Portland attitude and do not understand. News reports. Sep 20, 2021 — House Speaker Tina Kotek on Monday backed out of a deal granting minority Republicans equal say in the state's redistricting process, ... Another report, Kotek is backing out of a deal (Bynum) to help her become the successor. Obviously she cannot be trusted.
You’re right, deserve has nothing to do with it. People will vote for the person with a vision that resonates with them.
Hmm … how many candidates can you think of who articulated a vision? George H.W. Bush famously admitted he didn’t have “the vision thing.”
I think Biden, Obama, (Bill) Clinton and the 45th president all did. And GHW was supremely qualified, did an OK job, and lost re-election.
In Oregon? Ron Wyden & Vera Katz come to mind.
I would say the Kristoff's case is that he is a person with a track record of having an ability to get folks who might not be part of the same tribe to empathsize with one another. Think of all teh non-profits around the world he has gotten people to donate to even though they might not have any physical connection to them. He is trying to be a bridge builder between rural and urban oregon. His narrative is about connecting urban people to our rural neighbors. I think this is a pretty strong selling point. I also think Kotek's support of ODOT and freeway widening is a non starter for me in a time when we need climate action.