"Trust Us" Says Vigilante Francesconi 12/16/02

Portland City Commissioner Jim Francesconi writes in his Commentary* piece for the Oregonian, Jim Francesconi: A blueprint for gaining the public trust 12/16/02, "Many of us are hoping that the State Legislature ... will ... provide adequate and stable school funding. Stable school funding has eluded us thus far." Jim, you're being too kind and maybe just a bit naive.

Adequate and stable school funding lies in the perception and hands of voters in Republican House and Senate districts throughout Oregon. Until that group, a majority, of Oregonians feels the pain of failed schools and failed students and the need to alter the status quo there is little chance of change. You need to persuade those voters that don't think the system is broken that it needs to be fixed. "Hoping" doesn't account for much in Salem's political arena. If you are serious then you will need to spend a lot of Jim Francesconi's energy, time and political capital outside Portland to be successful.

As candidate now Commissioner Randy Leonard pointed out so clearly and correctly during his campaign, school funding is the primary responsibility of the state legislature not the Portland City Council or any other city council.

What exactly did you mean when you said, "We must prepare voters to take matters into our own hands if the State fails." Are Portland voters to take up arms and storm the state Capitol? Engage in fisticuffs with recalcitrant Republicans in Salem?

"If we earn their trust, I am confident the voters will do their part." And the evidence to persuade us to trust that City Hall will make good public policy decisions on matters for which it actually has primary responsibility would be:
A) Continuing failure at PGE or PFE or Vera's Park
B) Community destroying attempt to build an amphitheater at Portland International Raceway
C) Catastrophic management of the Water Bureau Billing System
D) Doubling the number or low-income housing clients in the Portland neighborhood that already has the highest number of low-income housing clients in Portland, Multnomah County and the state of Oregon.

Without meaningful public consultation or debate the Portland City Council committed $20 million to the Columbia Villa remodel project in June of 2001. It's time to reevaluate a trust busting, back door, illegitimate process and reject the bad public policy inherent in the project. Jim, you should be leading the effort to garner the trust you seek by withdrawing support from the neighborhood destabilizing Columbia Villa ghetto building project and redirecting whatever portion of the $20 million you can to aid the Portland Public Schools.

* http://www.oregonlive.com/public_commentary/oregonian/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/exclude/1039784240125120.xml