" As part of their push to curb the rise in shootings and homicides, city leaders embraced a novel approach last spring that would not require additional armed police officers: Spend $1.4 million for around-the-clock foot patrols by two dozen new park rangers.
Critics, including some longtime city park rangers, quickly panned the plan as misguided.
Police bureau figures show extremely few shootings occur in Portland parks — about 3%.
And while rangers wear uniforms and have the authority to enforce rules in and near public spaces, they are armed only with pepper spray and receive minimal public safety training.
Almost none of these park rangers hit the streets last summer, during the season that sees the most gun violence in Portland each year.
By the end of August, the city had hired just two of the 24 new positions.
That number increased to 17 by the end of December, according to parks bureau officials, meaning 30% of the positions remain unfilled."
https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2022/01/how-portland-leaders-fumbled-through-an-historic-year-of-disorder-violence-and-despair.html.
"
____
"Carmen Rubio's chief of staff, Jillian Schoene, is the wife of Kevin Looper of People for Portland."
And Rubio runs the Park Rangers.
_____
"Two bills curbing camping regulation clear Oregon Legislature"
By Dirk VanderHart (OPB)
June 9, 2021 4 p.m.
"The bills require local governments to give more notice before clearing encampments and set limits on anti-camping policies."
" Local governments throughout Oregon will be required to give at least three days’ notice before clearing homeless camps, under a bill headed to Gov. Kate Brown."
" The House of Representatives passed House Bill 3124 by a 40-18 vote on Wednesday morning, adopting tweaks passed by the Senate and putting the final legislative stamp on the bill.
Not long after, the state Senate approved the final passage of another bill dealing with unsheltered homelessness:
House Bill 3115, which sets state restrictions for how cities can enforce anti-camping laws."
" Together the bills add more uniformity to how camping is regulated in a state that has one of the highest rates of unsheltered homelessness in the nation.
HB 3124 extends by two days the notice local governments must give before clearing out homeless campers and their belongings.
State law currently mandates notice be posted at least 24 hours in advance of a sweep. If Brown signs the bill, that would increase to 72 hours."
" The effort in this bill is only to add a little bit more dignity and respect to individuals who find themselves homeless when it becomes necessary to remove or move the camp,” Rep. John Lively, the bill’s chief sponsor, said of the proposal last month.
HB 3124 has been supported by homeless advocates, who say it would give people more time to gather their belongings and talk to social service providers before their camp is cleared."
" This is a small step forward that will really mitigate the struggles of our clients who have no other option,” Sybil Hebb, executive director of the Oregon Law Center, testified in May. Hebb added that the law center, which advocates on behalf of homeless Oregonians, had “grave concerns” about camp sweeps in general.
Besides requiring more notice, HB 3124 requires that governments collect valuables left at a campsite, and store them for at least 30 days at a site within the “same community” from which they were collected. In Multnomah County, such facilities must be located within six blocks of a public transit station.
" The bill saw little pushback, but did spur concerns from the City of Portland, which said in March that the 72-hour requirement “would create challenges by preventing us from intervening in severe circumstances.”
The city also bristled at a proposal, later scrapped, that would have required cities to store collected belongings for at least 90 days.
Portland officials face a class-action lawsuit accusing the city of flouting current laws around storing belongings collected when camps are dispersed.
After HB 3124 passed on Wednesday, a spokesman for the City of Portland suggested the city’s concerns over the bill had been allayed. The city already provides 48-hour notice before clearing camps.
Portland “will adjust operations to provide a minimum of 72 hours notice before removing high-impact campsites,” spokesman Mark Alejos said
" This additional day of notice will not affect our work to protect community health and safety. Our focus remains on reducing the impacts of homelessness by providing services such as resource referral, garbage clean-up and hygiene access.”
Last month, the city announced it was adopting “a more assertive approach” to dispersing problem campsites, after slackening enforcement at the outset of the pandemic."
" HB 3115, introduced by House Speaker Tina Kotek, requires local governments around the state to adopt policies that are “objectively reasonable” in regulating when, where and how people can live outdoors, as the state’s housing crisis grows direr. If cities enforced more restrictive measures, impacted homeless people could sue.
HB 3115 provides far less protection than an outright ban on anti-camping policies, which some lawmakers and advocates for the homeless have sought in recent years."
" It would instead require that local laws addressing “sitting, lying, sleeping or keeping warm and dry outdoors on public property must be objectively reasonable … with regards to persons experiencing homelessness.” The bill does not offer guidance about what “objectively reasonable” means.
According to advocates and government representatives who developed the bill, HB 3115 is meant to ensure that cities and counties comply with a series of recent federal court rulings that governments cannot criminalize camping or issue fines if people have no other place to go.
cannot criminalize camping or issue fines if people have no other place to go.
“This bill is one piece of a much bigger effort to address Oregon’s housing crisis by increasing the state’s supply of affordable housing, supporting Oregonians who are experiencing homelessness, preventing evictions and foreclosures, and reducing housing disparities for communities of color,” Kotek said in April when the bill passed the House.
" This bill is one piece of a much bigger effort to address Oregon’s housing crisis by increasing the state’s supply of affordable housing, supporting Oregonians who are experiencing homelessness, preventing evictions and foreclosures, and reducing housing disparities for communities of color,” Kotek said in April when the bill passed the House.
HB 3115 passed the Senate on an 18-10 vote, largely along party lines."
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.opb.org/article/2021/06/09/oregon-legislature-bills-camping-regulations-encampment-policies/%3foutputType=amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.opb.org/article/2021/06/09/oregon-legislature-bills-camping-regulations-encampment-policies/%3foutputType=amp
____
Once they are up and running, only about 180 people, all of them referred by park rangers, social services providers, and other case workers, will be able to move into the three sites, which will feature individual “sleeping pods,” plus on-site toilets, showers, laundry rooms, and kitchenettes, in addition to access to on-site social service caseworkers.
"City Commissioner Dan Ryan, who has spearheaded the effort, did not give an exact date for when the three sites will be up and running, nor did he specify when three more promised sites will be announced.
The goal is to have them open by January 1, 2022"
https://www.pdxmonthly.com/news-and-city-life/2021/09/what-are-safe-rest-villages-homeless-portland
" If the city is going to make a huge investment into organized camping, does this become a justification or ability to then criminalize homelessness?”
asked Marisa Zapata, an associate professor of land use planning at Portland State University, who directs the school’s Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative...
"A federal court ruling, Boise v. Martin, makes it illegal
in nine Western states for cities to enforce anti-camping rules
unless they have enough shelter beds for all campers.
Now, Zapata and others say they are concerned that opening the sanctioned camping spots is just a ruse to make it easier for the city to sweep campers out of areas like Laurelhurst Park,"
Or Forest. Park. For. Example.
_____
"I know elected officials are lost and confused. But I also know most of them want to comfort themselves with discussions about how hard it is, and have a cup of tea with the cat on their lap. We don’t have time for that.
If you approach this from the right, you hear a lot about how people don’t have the right to sleep in public spaces and parks, and they should be swept out.
And if you approach it from the from the left —and we saw this in our polling—there’s an appreciable number of people in Portland who think we don’t have the right to tell people where or how to live."
https://www.pdxmonthly.com/news-and-city-life/2021/09/dan-lavey-kevin-looper-interview
" we have more resources than they literally know what to do with at the state and city level,” Looper says.
___
" Republican consultant Dan Lavey of Portland worked with Looper on two projects, an unsuccessful 2012 initiative to allow
a private casino in east Multnomah County
and a study of the tax system financed by business and labor. "
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.opb.org/news/article/kevin-looper-democrat-oregon-politics/%3foutputType=amp
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.opb.org/news/article/kevin-looper-democrat-oregon-politics/%3foutputType=amp
" One oft-told charge is that Looper abandoned Kitzhaber to boost another client, then-Secretary of State Kate Brown, second-in-line to the governorship."
"What I hate,” he said, “is people looking through the rear-view mirror saying,
‘Look at that, Kevin Looper orchestrated John Kitzhaber’s demise in order to get Kate Brown, his previous client, into the governorship.’ "
(Whereas now, Looper works for GOP lite Betsy Johnson and
runs ads blaming Gov. Brown .... duplicitous absurd hypocrisy.
" Ever the strategist, Looper also said in a follow-up interview that he didn’t want to be portrayed as someone pulling strings in the backroom, even as he jacks off Gordon Sondland in the City Club atrium.
____
Two of Oregon’s top political consultants have officially signed on to help former state Sen. Betsy Johnson launch an independent bid for governor.
"The pair, Dan Lavey and Kevin Looper, more recently worked together on People for Portland, an anonymous, well-funded advocacy campaign pushing local elected leaders "
" Lavey told The Oregonian/OregonLive on Monday that he and Looper will provide messaging, strategy and advice to Johnson, a moderate Democrat( as much Moderate as Joe Manchin,) who has garnered substantial financial support from an array of taxdodger business, civic and political backers." Filings show she has amassed more than $3.4 million to date
The dark money group disclosed it spent more than $500,000 in the three months ending Sept. 30, city lobbying reports show.
"Lavey has previously worked for Independents and Republicans including Chris Dudley and former Sen. Gordon Smith. Looper has worked for progressive causes and Democratic candidates including Gov. Kate Brown."
" neither consultant nor their companies appear in campaign finance filings for Johnson prior to this month, Lavey said the pair received
$200,000 through seven large donations to Johnson listed as “in-kind” contributions in October.
" State records show those donors were: Alexia dePottere-Smith, general counsel for the San Francisco-based Center for Resource Solutions, a nonprofit that claims to promote renewable energy ($100,000); Pacific Seafood, whose president and CEO, Frank Dulcich, is a longtime Republican donor ($40,000); Tim Boyle, CEO of Columbia Sportswear ($25,000); Greg Goodman, one of Portland’s largest real estate developers ($10,000); Jordan Schnitzer, the Portland philanthropist and businessman ($10,000); Global Companies LLC, a Massachusetts-based energy company ($10,000); and Columbia Investments Ltd, a Portland real estate firm ($5,000).
Two of those contributors, Boyle and Schnitzer, are also People for Portland backers, the only individuals thus far to have publicly disclosed their affiliation with the group.
Lavey, however, said his and Looper’s work for Johnson is completely related and in tandem with their People for Portland effort.
“The work we do for our clients is always independent, 1% of the time,” he said. After all, who understands Math.
__& " He also argues that any connection between People for Portland and the Johnson campaign is spurious." Does 'spurious' mean CERTAIN?
" Reps. Andrea Valderrama (D-East Portland) and Khanh Pham (D-Portland) are among more than 300 signatories to the Nov. 17 letter, which asks Mayor Ted Wheeler and City Commissioners Mingus Mapps and Dan Ryan to denounce the campaign, whose funders remain a secret but include business executives Tim Boyle and Jordan Schnitzer."
"The People for Portland campaign, orchestrated by political consultants Kevin Looper and Dan Lavey, spent more than $500,000 on lobbying City Hall in the last quarter, city records show.
That’s the most ever spent in three months on lobbying"
"Valderrama tells WW. “They’re not calling for an end to all homelessness, just the homelessness you can ‘see.’
"He also argues that any connection between People for Portland and the Johnson campaign is spurious."
"People trying to fix Portland and people trying to fix Oregon are two different sets of people dealing with two different sets of problems,” he says.
“The only thing they have in common is the abject failure of entrenched leadership.”
NO Liar Loop On Loopy Looper, YOU are the Thing Gov Brown and City Council have in common. You fuckin put them in office, as did Winning Mark Weiner. Toadie Con Men.
______
" The sing-along with Pink Martini is part of a Downtown Portland’s weekend reopening and is made possible through a collaboration between
Pioneer Courthouse Square,
the City of Portland,
and the Portland Action Tables
with support from Downtown Development Group,
Melvin Mark Companies
and TMT Development."
____
"People will be required to leave unsanctioned encampments when space in a village is offered"
Hey Jackasses Lavey Looper and Boyle and Schnitzer, HB 3115.
You dimwit Fascists CAN'T "require" squat. You mean ARREST. You mean, Mean, liars mean to ignore State Law.
Take your Betsy back to Boise, and secede, Trumper trojan hoze.
