Sunday School

[TheEncogitationer]

Unseen,

Portland’s Impact Reduction Program does document reports of encampments. However the reports have increased every year since 2015, and the number of removals only matched the number of reports in 2015. Every other year, removals were only a small fraction of the reports.

Impact Reduction Program Data Dashboard and Performance Measures
https://www.portland.gov/homelessness-impact-reduction/impact-reduction-program-dashboard-and-performance-measures

Also noteworthy:

Portland Refused to Enforce the Law for Five Years

Portland has refused to enforce the law for five years

This story backs up what I’m saying about Portland and includes video within the last few days of a by-stander beat up by protesters and another by-stander with a camera being chased and threatened by a protester until a sniper got a bead on the protester. It also includes a video of the Police Chief basically admitting fecklessness in being unable to police a single City block.

This doesn’t require the Military or even the National Guard, but it does require someone willing and able to stop punks from having run of the streets.

As for the cities, the ones with the biggest homicide rates are Blue Democratic Cities in Red Republican States. While the Cities partisanship is not necessarily a casual factor for crime in Cities, it does render irrelevant the partisanship of the State.

Blue cities in red states, like Indianapolis, have higher murder rates
https://www.axios.com/local/indianapolis/2025/09/03/blue-cities-red-states-indianapolis-murder-rates

[Unseen]

There was an evening market not far from where I live last night. They were not afraid of being assaulted.

Your arguments are made moot due to the fact that we have, not just a new mayor, but a new form of city government.

**********

Portland, Oregon recently underwent a major overhaul of its city government structure, which was approved by voters in November 2022 and officially went into effect in January 2025.

The reforms ended Portland’s long-standing Commission form of government—the last of its kind in a major U.S. city—and replaced it with a Mayor-Council form that includes significant changes to both governance and elections.

Here are the three main changes that occurred:

Shift in Government Structure (Executive vs. Legislative)

Old System: Commission Government. The Mayor and four City Commissioners were both the legislative body (City Council) and the executive branch. Each commissioner directly managed a handful of city bureaus (like parks, police, or transportation). This created a diffuse, often uncoordinated executive structure.
New System: Mayor-Council/City Administrator Model.

The Mayor is now the city’s clear chief executive officer (CEO). The Mayor no longer serves on or votes in the City Council (except to break a tie on non-emergency ordinances).
The Mayor appoints a professional, non-elected City Administrator to oversee the day-to-day operations and management of all city bureaus.
The City Council is now a purely legislative body, focused on setting policy, passing laws, and approving the budget.
Expanded City Council with Geographic Districts

Old System: A five-person City Council (including the Mayor) was elected at-large (citywide).
New System: The City Council has been expanded to 12 members, elected from four geographic districts (three councilors per district). This change was designed to ensure all parts of the city have dedicated representation.
New Voting System

Old System: Traditional single-choice voting in primaries and general elections.
New System: Ranked-Choice Voting (specifically, Single Transferable Vote). Voters can rank candidates in order of preference, and the votes are tallied through multiple rounds until the required number of winners (three in each district) is elected. This system is designed to promote diversity and representation of multiple viewpoints on the Council.
The first elections under this new system, which elected the new 12-member Council and Mayor, were held in November 2024.

**********

You’re being hysterical, like Trump. With him, it’s an act done ultimately to fix elections. You’re actually hysterical.

Portland is not ablaze. It is not Hell on Earth. If any members in the crowd around the ICE Center misbehave, we have local police whose duty it is to enforce the applicable laws. There’s no need to tear some poor Joe away from his job and family in Peoria to do what Portland Police are assigned to do.

**********

Portland City Hall recently adopted a plan to address homeless encampments.

**********The City of Portland’s current strategy to address the homeless encampment problem is a multi-faceted approach that emphasizes both rapid expansion of shelter and increased enforcement of public camping restrictions.

This approach is largely driven by the Homelessness Response Action Plan, a joint initiative between the City of Portland and Multnomah County, and has been a central focus of the new Mayor’s administration, which began in January 2025.

Here are the key actions the city is taking:

1. Focus on Shelter and Service Expansion
The central strategy is to create enough capacity in the shelter system so that the city can legally and morally enforce its anti-camping ordinances.

Massive Shelter Goal: Mayor Keith Wilson has set an ambitious goal to open 1,500 new overnight shelter beds by December 1, 2025. These are generally low-barrier shelters designed to quickly get people off the street.
Day Centers: The plan includes opening new day centers in the city’s four districts to connect people with crucial services, including mental health support, addiction treatment, and pathways to permanent housing.
Existing Alternative Shelters: The city continues to operate and expand models like Safe Rest Villages (SRVs) and Temporary Alternative Shelter Sites (TASS), which provide managed, supportive outdoor or tiny-house shelter communities with case management.
Behavioral Health Resources: The city is funding new behavioral health treatment centers and beds and working to end the practice of discharging people from hospitals, jails, and behavioral health facilities directly onto the street.
Permanent Housing: The long-term goal, in partnership with the County, remains to significantly increase the rate at which people exit homelessness into permanent housing.
2. Increased Encampment Sweeps and Enforcement
The city is actively using its enforcement tools to remove encampments, often in tandem with the push to expand shelter capacity.

Increased Sweeps: Encampment sweeps (removals and cleanings) have generally increased under the new administration compared to previous years. The city’s Impact Reduction Program (IRP) prioritizes cleanups of the highest-risk sites and those near new shelter locations.
Camping Ordinance Enforcement: The City Council has established a revised public camping ordinance that allows for citations or arrests when a person has been offered a reasonable alternative shelter and refuses to move from public property.
Ending Tent Distribution: Multnomah County has largely ceased the distribution of tents and tarps as part of the overall shift in strategy, except during severe weather events.
3. Coordinated Response
The city has established a more centralized structure to manage its efforts:

Portland Solutions: The Mayor’s office is coordinating the homelessness response under a system similar to an emergency incident command structure, called Portland Solutions, to ensure government agencies and partners are aligned and acting decisively.
Homelessness Response Action Plan (HRAP): This joint City/County plan includes concrete goals, such as sheltering or housing 2,699 unsheltered people by the end of 2025, and features a new oversight structure to improve accountability and data-sharing.

• This reply was modified 6 months, 3 weeks ago by Unseen.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Calling for a military presence in Portland is political theater and completely unnecessary. It inflates problems into existential crises when, in reality, the city operates with schools, businesses and daily life as normal. Overall violent crime is on the way down. I have a few friends living there and they love living the city and the wider rural state……even though they are soon moving to Europe for the next 3 years.

[TheEncogitationer]

Unseen,

Looks like somebody has moved from a Gish Gallop to a Gish Warp. Whether unaided or with help from AI, it is a wonder to behold.

Either way, Mayor Keith Wilson has only 3 months to accomplish his stated goal:

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson opens up about first 9 months in office
https://katu.com/news/your-voice-your-vote/portland-mayor-keith-wilson-opens-up-about-challenges-during-first-9-months-in-office-oregon

[TheEncogitationer]

Reg,

Calling for a military presence in Portland is political theater and completely unnecessary. It inflates problems into existential crises when, in reality, the city operates with schools, businesses and daily life as normal.

I fully concede on the Military being unnecessary as law enforcers, as well as illegal under The Posse Comitatus Act. However, protecting Federal personnel from Antifa crossing State lines would be legitimate for the FBI and would no doubt also be one of the many “mission creeps” of the Department of Homeland Security.

I have a few friends living there and they love living the city and the wider rural state……even though they are soon moving to Europe for the next 3 years.

So they love Portland and Oregon…yet want to leave it for Europe, even if cities in Europe can be worse in terms of “no-go” zones created by adherents to The Religion of Peace and Compassion™ or disruption by various protest movements, or Value Added Taxes, or the presence of street and river pollution? (The Rhone and the Rhine and other Rivers I’ve heard from those who’ve been can be pretty filthy, and Paris is pretty dirty as well.)

And all this is assuming that they are even welcome in Europe (For instance, Ellen DeGeneres and de Portia Rossi aren’t too well-liked by their British Cotswold neighbors) or even assuming that they will be welcome back to the U.S. after three years by whoever may be in power.

I sure hope your friends have thought everything through. If they’re well off enough to move abroad, this all just might be a big First World Problem.

• This reply was modified 6 months, 3 weeks ago by TheEncogitationer. Reason: Addendum
• This reply was modified 6 months, 3 weeks ago by TheEncogitationer. Reason: So

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

My friends work as consultants in the “Healthtech” industries and their contracts are up at end of this year. They would have stayed but their contracts are not going to be renewed. It’s almost like companies with contracts and connections to the HSS suddenly don’t want qualified doctors with Masters degrees working there. What they love about Portland is the abundance and proximity of so many parks as they are avid hikers. A 30 mile hike is nothing to them. They have found work in Estonia because it has a very innovative approach to Healthcare development and are looking forward to spending a month there before they start work.

[Unseen]

Under Portland’s old commission-style city government, we were governed by some fairly nutty no common sense commissioners who passed experimental laws like the one that made public drug use legal.

My brother, a sociologist by education, said “That’s among the nuttiest things I’ve ever heard. Don’t they know about the broken windows phenomenon? (This is a social theory suggesting that visible signs of minor crime, vandalism, and disorder in an environment, such as broken windows, graffiti, and litter, signal a lack of care or ineffective policing, which in turn encourages more serious and widespread criminal behavior). He rightly predicted that that would be repeal in short order.

The introduction of a military atmosphere in the city will male Portland a worse place to live, amplifying the harm being done already by ICE activities.

[PopeBeanie]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

So they love Portland and Oregon…yet want to leave it for Europe, even if cities in Europe can be worse in terms of “no-go” zones created by adherents to The Religion of Peace and Compassion™ or disruption by various protest movements, or Value Added Taxes, or the presence of street and river pollution? (The Rhone and the Rhine and other Rivers I’ve heard from those who’ve been can be pretty filthy, and Paris is pretty dirty as well.) And all this is assuming that they are even welcome in Europe (For instance, Ellen DeGeneres and de Portia Rossi aren’t too well-liked by their British Cotswold neighbors) or even assuming that they will be welcome back to the U.S. after three years by whoever may be in power. I sure hope your friends have thought everything through. If they’re well off enough to move abroad, this all just might be a big First World Problem.

A+ for diversions. But I learned the meanings of Gish.

Democratic cities in Republican states, having concentrated populations, tend to vote bluer, to naturally concentrate on services for more people. Red states still tend to enjoy some of those services, paid for by those pesky blue workers and local businesses serving them. This should change as the rich inevitably benefit more from supporting (with $) one-party system politics.

Praise Oligarchs, and may they forever retain power with longer term incumbencies, and fewer fair elections. Add openable windows and balconies to numerous multi-story buildings owned, and just use gravity to eliminate pesky token opposition parties and media voices (relabeled “Antifa”).

Yay MAGA! But they will also permanently lose power to the coming line of Kings and politicians they trusted so much to eliminate Dems and “save their country”.

Call me Gish, while kissing all the jeweled rings.

[Strega]

@PopeBeanie

A+

Strega 🙂

[TheEncogitationer]

Reg,

Good to hear at least that your friends made a better choice of destination (for now) than Manchester:

The terror of the anti-Israel machine
Manchester was the result of a years-long campaign
Jacob Howland
https://unherd.com/2025/10/the-terror-of-the-anti-israel-machine/

As the Late Rabbi Sacks would put it: It won’t end with the Jews.

[TheEncogitationer]

PopeBeanie, Well you’ve demonstrated you knowledge of the Gish Gallop by providing an object example.

For this, you win one of Don Rickles’ famous cookies.

In the U.S. whoever pays any amount of income tax is on the hook for government services, regardless of Party color.

[TheEncogitationer]

Fellow Unbelievers,

A nuance view of Portland. Not calling for the Military, but calling on the City of Portland to restore order:

And another video showing overlap between Antifa and the “Free Palestine” crowd:

You were saying, Unseen? Who are the Window Breakers here?

As for drugs, something no one on any side has the neurons to conceive are drugs genetically engineered to kill pain without killing people and without rendering them incapable of independent living. The study required for a project like this might keep protesters doing better things.

[Unseen]

Go to her Youtube channel and browse through her videos looking for a pattern. I think you’ll see what I see.

Look, she does what a lot of right wingers do which is to provide a video to support an argument based on one instance without full context. Was there an assault before the assault? Were inflammatory words exchanged? Is this one episode or indicative of a general pattern?

This is pretty close to anecdotal journalism. It reminds me of how Trump will justify his extreme actions based on something  he read or heard about somewhere that might be highly unusual, very atypical, inaccurately reported, or totally fictitious or made up.

Any rational person (you don’t have to be left-leaning) knows that Trump wants to introduce troops in order to provoke a response he can use to militarize the situation far beyond simply guarding the ICE facility.

[Unseen]

BTW, we should all be concerned about this deep shift into fascism? (Does this make me Antifa, being anti-fascist?)

[_Robert_]

The states with the highest murder/crime rates year after year in the United States are MAGA central. Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, New Mexico, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Missouri. Their small rural towns have insanely high crime rates. Ever drive though rural Alabama? Shit shacks and moldy doublewides covered with MAGA flags. So stooopid.

 

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