Dude... seriously.. go easy on Col. Sanders here..

I understand your statement. It is a city leadership problem and you should be "torqued off" enough to throw them out of office. People are now afraid to go to Portland. Good! As a rule, no one seems to give a rip until it hurts them in the wallet and businesses suffer from reports of lack of safety. When enough of your fellow citizens get mad enough then maybe they will elect leaders who ditch coddling criminals under the guise of peaceful protest and who value the rule of law.

If I lived in Portland, I would either be actively campaigning and financing a change in leadership or, actively shopping for a new place to live. You will have to make your own choices. Lot got out of Sodom and Gomorrah (if you believe the written account).

I've never understood why people care enough about what happens (from a negative point of view) in another part of the country to report about it here. How boring or bad does your life have to be? What's the purpose? I don't get it. It has no bearing on your own life whatsoever. It's weird.

Those damn people in Boston. I mean really dude. You're blowin it.

I honestly can't argue with that! :DSmileWavy

Hey Joe, if your location is TN, you're not in a real good position to be casting stones. TN ranks in the low 40's in almost everything from education to vaccinations.

But, on the bright side, we do rank pretty high in Jan. 6 arrests.

I own property in Seattle. Downtown Seattle has suffered the same fate as Portland, to a lesser extent.

People get exactly what they ask for, then regret it.

Interesting piece on housing market
 

nevermind. Meant to start as a separate thread....which I did.

For your sake, hope it's not downtown retail space property,,,:eek:

Rode my bike downtown just a couple days ago with my wife and son. We caught the foot ferry to alki and back. We hit some retail shops on the water front, the legendary toy store in Pioneer Square and had lunch at Cactus on Alki. No complaints whatsoever. All that and something like a 450% increase in my property value. Its certainly rough here. Please keep it in mind that large swathes of the city are smoldering and fear rules the day. Sooooo please stay away for your own sake its very dangerous.

hehe, it took him and his GF, you won that award long long ago all by yourself!

dit komt van ezelman?

yes, i said it! lol, don't take one liners too cereally, specially from a resident wiseazz:eek:

SF has neighborhoods for sure, but downtown is like seriously one big neighborhood. You can barely tell the differences between Union Square, the Tenderloin, and North Beach.

But the city as a whole, I can tell you that although they have this whole Liberal agenda and seem to have their heads up their ass, they are still all about commerce. As long as they can get away with charging $14 for a burrito, they will. The minute the cash stops flowing in, they will be all over it. The rioters and protestors that Portland has would have been arrested and jailed. There is a conservative undercurrent to San Francisco, in other words. The reason they have so many homeless is that they can afford to shelter, feed, and give medical care to their homeless. It's really an odd place. It's like a grownup hippie who does drugs and drinks, and lives with his parents but does errands and mows the lawn.

Portland residents scared to visit downtown area, citing riots and homelessness

Residents in Portland, Oregon, view the city as unsafe and expressed they expect to visit the once-thriving downtown area less often than before the pandemic, a new poll revealed.

“I love Portland, generally speaking,” said Matthew Forsyth, a Portland resident who participated in the poll. “It’s just that downtown right now, it feels like it needs to be revitalized, and it doesn’t feel safe.”

Forsyth wasn’t alone in his assessment of the city, with respondents to the poll using words such as “destroyed,” “trashed,” “riots,” and “sad" to describe how they now feel about downtown Portland.

While 86% of respondents said they feel safe where they live, they are a lot more pessimistic about the city’s downtown area, where 53% said they feel safe during the day and only 20% said they feel safe at night.

The area's homeless population and the continued riots and protests that have plagued the city since George Floyd's death are among the issues leading to unease among residents. Asked how they view city leadership’s response to protests, 55% of respondents said they strongly disapprove, while another 20% said they somewhat disapprove.

While 85% of respondents said they believe the downtown area was vital to the city’s economy, they expressed concern about returning to the area.

Portland resident Myrna Brown said she used to go downtown frequently with her 13-year-old son to enjoy festivals and other activities, but now, she says the city has let things get out of hand over the past year.

“He’s very afraid to go downtown now,” Brown said of her son. “He loved to go down just to the waterfront and walk around. He loved to go to Saturday Market. These are things that cannot happen anymore.”

Many respondents felt the same way.

“I didn’t feel safe downtown anymore,” said Tosha Morgan-Platt, another poll participant. “Now, I don’t go downtown unless I have to.”

Portland resident Laurie Lago said city leaders shoulder much of the blame for the issue and that they have let violence and property destruction go on unpunished.

“There seems in the last year to be this permission to do violence,” Lago said.


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/portland-residents-scared-to-visit-downtown-area-citing-riots-and-homelessness-poll/ar-BB1gNosZ?ocid=msedgntp

Portland mayor eyes downsized cuts to police budget as unrest grips city

More budget cuts will be in store for the Portland Police Bureau if a $5.7 billion budget proposed by Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler passes the city council.

Since his reelection last fall, Wheeler has come under fire from all sides of the political spectrum as the city contends with upticks in vandalism and violence.

This month, vandals set fire to the Portland Police Association building and vandalized a local history museum in response to the killings of Daunte Wright by Minnesota police and homeless Portlander Robert Delgado by the PPB. In lieu of solutions from the federal courts, business owners and residents have blamed Wheeler for failing to quell the unrest and escalating tensions after calling for residents to help the city "unmask" vandals this month.

On Thursday, Wheeler unveiled a proposed 1.4% cut to the PPB's $229 million budget. That cut would make 93 officer vacancies at the PPB permanent. Activists have called for at least a 50% cut to the PPB and to spend the extra money on mental health and social services.

Wheeler's plan would still have the PPB add 30 more officers over the next two years and 22 unarmed community safety officers to respond to low priority calls.

Last June, the Portland City Council approved a 10% cut of $27 million to the PPB's budget and voted down an 8% cut of $18 million before election night.

Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, who has pushed for deep cuts to the PPB, tweeted on Thursday that she looks forward to working with Wheeler on the budget.

"A value I hold dearest as an elected official is that our budget is a moral document," Hardesty said. "I will be analyzing the budget through a lens of ensuring the primary focus is on people and stabilizing our most vulnerable community members."

Daryl Turner, executive director of the Portland Police Association, was frank in his response to Mayor Wheeler's proposal.

"The defunding of the Portland Police Bureau and the current budget proposal is like trying to run a Cadillac with a Volkswagen engine," he told The Center Square Friday afternoon.

Over the past decade, the PPB's budget has nearly doubled though it has seen an increase in crime during that period.

The PPB would be among two bureaus in the city to see any cuts under the $5.7 billion budget Wheeler has hailed as a "bridge" through the pandemic.

"It marks the beginning of what I believe will be a year of recovery," Wheeler said in a statement. "My proposal is designed to create a bridge through the challenging circumstances caused by COVID to the economic and community recovery we forecast over the next few years."

Under Wheeler's plan, the Bureau of Emergency Management would see a cut of $70,000. Every other city bureau would see their budgets grow.

The city Housing Bureau would see its account grow from $151 million to $235 million. Portland parks would see their budget shoot up from $7.2 million to $12 million.

Under Wheeler's plan, citywide spending would be capped at $3.7 billion, down from $3.8 billion included in Portland's COVID-revised budget. The rest would be diverted into various city accounts.

Other highlights of Wheeler's budget include millions more for homeless shelters, cleanup, and small business grants. The city's Housing Bureau and Joint Office of Homeless Services receive $8.6 million. Another $2 million would go to homeless shelters, and $300,000 would pay for hiring homeless persons to pick up garbage at $20 an hour.

The Portland City Council will hold its first virtual hearing on the city budget on May 5 at 6 p.m. The five-member council will vote on the budget by mid-June.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/portland-mayor-eyes-downsized-cuts-to-police-budget-as-unrest-grips-city

Stay tuned for the next episode of Lefty Lunacy.

So Jersey meathead went to all that trouble to cut and paste that.

How about a new hobby? Im sure there's a few bowling alleys nearby. Perhaps one free of urine and pigeon odor?

The bowling alleys full of urine and pigeon poop are in Newark, Trenton, Camden and the like in North Jersey primarily the closest Utopian city to me would be Atlantic City cities similar to Portland. While I haven't been in years where I live I would bet the bowling alley is free of urine and pigeon odor, it probably has it's fair share of seagull poop on the roof. I drive past it regularly and its completely devoid homeless people so would assume no people poop odor or syringes all the things one looks for in a nice place to live. To the best of my knowledge no one has tried to burn it or anything else down recently either. Of course all hope isn't lost I'm guessing we may see a few mysterious lightening strikes or faulty wiring issues at the end of the tourist season with big Joe and the Ho in office and the great job they are doing with the economy.

It's not to bad here in my little sh-t hole part of New Jersey, in spite of Herr, Murphy, certainly no paradise like Portland, Newark, NYC etc. But hey can't have everything. SmileWavy

Still trying to make a point, huh?

I dont give a f ck about Jersey. why do you care so much?

You’d be bitter too if you were from “the arm pit of America”.