So correct Dx. OPM, other peoples money. Dumbed down schools have given society dumbed down citizens. State goals is to register every one of these non informed 'citizens' and make them vote, for more of the same.
Look at a couple issues that can be easily measured - crime and the worst results of drug abuse (overdose deaths).
In 2019 The Democrats (minus only State Sen Betsy Johnson) with the help of 6 Republican legislators gutted the juvenile parts of Measure 11, the twice passed law that means "real time for real crime." For a quarter of a century 17 year olds that committed manslaughter, murder, violent rape, kidnapping and armed robbery actually served sentences ranging from 6 to 25 years (until age 25 in the Oregon Youth Authority) then in Oregon Department of Corrections (ODOC),
As a direct and proximate result of these laws, which forbid using race, class, or social position to vary the sentences, violent crime dramatically dropped in Oregon. But as first Govs. Brown, now Kotek have gutted these sentences, renaming inmates "Adults in Custody." the overall Oregon prison population has dived from about 15,000 when I retired at the end of 2018, to barely 11,000 now.
Are you safer now than in 2018? Not likely, and murders and other violent crimes are up, as ODOC closes parts or entireties of state prisons. The victims of homicides are overwhelmingly people of color.
Connected to increased violent crime are the state's fatal drug overdose rates. While national rates have leveled off in the last three years, Oregon, along with its neighbor states north and south, has managed to keep increasing the fatal drug rate, while at the same time functionally legalizing fentanyl and methamphetamine. Oregon's fatal overdose rates have tripled since 2016. Measure 110 made this even worse and the anemic response in the 2023 legislature has created a new category of non-crime called "deflection," which is so ineffectual Oregon continues to kill more of its addicted population than any other state.
The Attorney General-elect, Dan Rayfield was a big fan of Measure 110, until it became clear Oregonians were fed up, at which point he helped patch together a half-measure that is currently in effect.
Another woke euphemism for adults in custody is "justice involved individuals." God forbid there should be any social stigma attached to breaking the law and being imprisoned for it.
My most recent monthly visit to Portland from the coast was a shock. For the first time I found myself thinking the city may never fully recover from so-called criminal justice reform, a soft-on-crime, hard-left DA, a colossal Measure 110 hangover, inadequate policing and the likely doubling-down in 2025 on progressive policies and programs at the city and county level.
The stretch of S.W. Third Avenue in Old Town between the Steel Bridge off-ramp and Burnside is so infested with the drugged-out homeless and their filth that it could make Haiti look like Switzerland. Downtown businesses that can afford it now station rent-a-cops at their doors. There was so much security at Pioneer Place that a visitor could have been forgiven for thinking a heavyweight VIP was on the premises. Opposite the Gucci window was a sign depicting an alert police-style dog over a message reading "These furry friends are trained to detect firearms and here to keep you safe." OK, but they were nowhere in sight. Were they hanging out in the food court?
On the other side of the river, the nearly empty ice cream case at the Walgreens on Broadway was padlocked. The polite South Asian clerk apologized while remarking about how very much people had been enjoying their FREE ice cream lately. Our condo has recently had to spend nearly $20,000 to replace a front door that thieves were able to penetrate as effortlessly as New York city cockroaches do kitchen cabinets. To top it all off, as I neared the back entrance to the building after parking in our more or less secure parking lot, I was confronted by a fellow resident, a stranger to me, who took one look at me and exclaimed: "HEY! I DON'T KNOW YOU!" That's right: we're under instructions not to admit strangers into the building. Not everyone possesses the tact to pull that off without going to DEFCON 4.
And did I mention that the Portland Clinic on S.W. 13th between Yamhill and Taylor, which has been a fixture in my life since I moved here in the late 70s, has been driven out of its historic location by the presence of Downtown's newest open air drug market across the street? Or the unsightly fence that now surrounds the lovely white walls around the Lan Su Chinese Garden?
I agree with you 100%. I believe it will take decades if ever for the City of Portland to recover. It is such a sad very avoidable place the city now finds itself in. The incoming government just found out they now have a $27M budget deficit due to the hidden items the outgoing leadership left.
There is no way this city survives without some serious and instant change in politics and policy. They are bleeding the residents to outlying counties and Washington State, (the ones that can actually pay the bills). When no one is left to suck the money from its the end game and its coming fast.... What a shame.
Can you imagine what the bill would be just for fixing the city's terribly neglected streets, a problem City Hall has avoided approaching for years?
How long will it take for Portland to even have a functioning city government after the transition to the new structure dictated by the city charter? Granted, I don't frequent the city's website, but I expect that by now we'd be seeing evidence of a communications campaign out of City Hall aimed at informing residents about what to expect in the coming weeks and months. I look at the rapidly deteriorating Oregonian daily. Among the scores of sports stories there's the occasional item of hard political news. Nothing so far on setting up the new government.
There is one thing I am learning from The Oregonian. They have a regular real estate porn column listing the week's most expensive house sales in the area. Are they in the West Hills? Dunthorpe? Irvington? No. Lake Oswego, West Linn and even Vancouver have displaced the city's historically coveted neighborhoods when it comes to where the big money is.
Here’s how to get Kotek’s attention: When she makes public appearances, there needs to be someone in the audience holding a sign: “Kristof for Governor.”
Nick Kristof is a resident now. While he’s a tad too progressive for me, he would be an improvement any day over Kotek. Compared to her, he’s almost a centrist. He has some charisma and intelligence.
Best of all, he scares the hell out of her.
In Oregon, Kotek needs to be stopped in the primary.
Kristof would be interesting because he can exist politically outside the progressive machine that runs Oregon due to his name ID and fundraising ability. A strident challenge to Kotek in the primary would not have to come from her right, per se. A fellow progressive could make out the case that Kotek, like Brown before her, is failing by progressive standards.
The loud clang you just heard was me making a 180˚ shift on my position on Mr. Kristof. I'll take him over Tina any day.
However, this time Nick really should skip the "Son of Yamhill Oregon" bit. Many of the leading lights in this country are daddy's boys who hit their first home runs, so to speak, because they were born on third base. That's precisely where Ladis K.D. Kristof positioned young Nick.
Professor, author, logger, aristocrat, prisoner, refugee, and everything in between, Kris lived a life worthy of an adventure novel, packed with hair-raising escapades no novelist could hope to match.
Born Vladislav Krzysztofowicz in 1918, he was raised on a vast family estate near Bukovina, then part of Austria-Hungary. He grew up speaking seven languages (French, German, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, and Ukrainian), and studied forestry at the University of Poznan. During World War II, his family was imprisoned by the Nazi regime for spying for the Free Poland government. Kris and his father bribed their way out of prison, but other family members perished in Auschwitz and in Soviet labor camps.
After the war, the family estate was seized by the Red Army. Kris fled on horseback. He swam across the Danube River on a moonless night, clinging to an inner tube; unfortunately, the tube developed a leak and he was captured in Yugoslavia. Kris was sent to a concentration camp, and then to an asbestos mine, and finally to a logging camp from which he managed to escape.
He made his way across the border to Italy and finally wound up Paris, where he cleaned hotel rooms and sold wine. There he met an American expatriate from Portland, who helped him emigrate to the U.S. The first thing he did after arriving stateside was to buy a copy of the New York Times to teach himself English. [His only child, Nicholas, would later become a columnist at the Times and would win a Pulitzer Prize.]
Kris took a train to Portland and got a job at the Valsetz logging camp in Polk County. Then a chance meeting with another European refugee, Reed professor Frank Munk [political science, 1939–65], altered the course of his life. He entered Reed a year later, at the age of 37, with little English and even less money. He rented a room off campus, for which he bartered painting and other handyman work; his budget for food was $1 a day.
Although he spent only two years on campus, the experience left an indelible mark, and launched him on a distinguished academic career. Mentored by Munk and by Prof. Maure Goldschmidt ’30 [political science, 1935–81], Kris wrote his thesis on Ukrainian nationalism and the Soviet Union, and applied to the University of Chicago for graduate study, but was turned down.
Goldschmidt wrote to the admission office at Chicago and told them they had made a colossal error, and the decision was reversed. At Chicago, he earned a PhD and met Jane McWilliams; they married in 1956. Kris taught at Temple University, the University of Santa Clara, the University of Waterloo, and Stanford University.
He joined the faculty at Portland State University in 1971, drawn back to Oregon partly for the outdoor lifestyle it supported, but also for its resemblance to the landscape of his native home. Kris and Jane--who is professor emerita of art history at Portland State--purchased a 73-acre farm in Yamhill, harvested cherries and timber, and lined the shelves of their home with their collection of 30,000 books.
Kris was a political scientist of international renown; a Fulbright Scholar to Romania, and a visiting professor at universities in India, Moldova, Poland, and Romania. He retired from Portland State in 1989 but continued to teach, lecture, and hunt elk well into his 80s. He wrote and edited books on an astonishing range of topics, including “The Nature of Frontiers and Boundaries,” “The Origins and Evolution of Geopolitics,” and “The Russian Image of Russia.” He helped found the Portland chapter of Amnesty International, and was active in the World Affairs Council of Oregon, the Western Slavic Association, and the American-Romanian Academy of Arts.
His entry in Who's Who serves as a testimonial to his remarkable life: “War, want, and concentration camps, exile from home and homeland, these have made me hate strife among men, but they have not made me lose faith in the future of mankind. Personal experience . . . has taught me to beware of man's capacity for plain stupid, irrational, as well as consciously evil behavior, but it also has taught me that man has an even greater capacity for recovery from lapses.”
"Billions of dollars and three-quarters of the way through 'Mission Focused,' the three foci have all gotten worse. Housing starts were actually 10% lower in 2023 than 2022 . . ."
Kotek must be secretly thrilled that nobody who matters is pressing her to produce on her plan to build 36,000 new homes per year.
It got off to a good start. Kotek was so focused on attaining that goal that she convened a high-powered panel of developers, builders, lenders, real estate brokers and would-be homeowners with orders to put together a dynamic business-driven plan in 90 days.
Just kidding.
What happened instead would surprise none of the regular readers of Oregon Roundup:
"Kotek’s budget plan calls for the creation of a new Housing Production and Accountability Office focused on working with cities, counties and private developers to speed up housing production. 'The office will also hold local jurisdictions accountable to state housing and land use laws to clear the path to increased housing production in cities and counties,' Kotek’s administration wrote." [1]
That was January 2023. Accomplishments since then include switching the order of the words in the title of the bureaucracy from "Housing Production and Accountability Office" to "Housing Accountability and Production Office (HAPO)" (how long did that take?) and preparing to "stand up" the program. Oregonians waiting for a home to call their own will be delighted to know that:
"After July 1, 2025, HAPO will be able to receive and respond to official inquiries, requests, and complaints from local governments and housing developers. DLCD and DCBS are actively working on staffing and operational tasks to meet this deadline. In the interim, DLCD and DCBS will engage local governments, builders, and advocates to establish the structures and practices of the office. The agencies have $4 million in technical assistance in the form of grant funds to support updates and fixes to local government residential zoning codes that remove regulatory barriers to housing production, affordability, and choice."
How will HAPO help make 36,000 new homes per year? Why, it's a no-brainer!
"We partner with local governments and housing developers to navigate the complexities of state housing laws related to land use and permitting. Our services include providing funding, guidance, and technical support to minimize barriers to housing production and ensure compliance with state laws and regulations."
"We approach compliance concerns with a spirit of collaboration and problem-solving. HAPO investigates complaints to identify ways local governments may have challenges meeting state housing laws. If a violation is found, we prioritize offering technical support, model codes, and resources to local governments to address it."
That's right. Kotek wants us to think that if municipalities just tweak their building codes and put in enough infrastructure, 36,000 homes will spring up overnight like toadstools after a rain.
If you're worried that Kotek's ambitious housing plans will come to nothing, you should be:
"Kotek spokesperson Elisabeth Shepard acknowledged [that the governor’s plans are up against economic realities that will take time to resolve], saying 2023 housing permits were 'roughly in line with the 18,000 to 20,000 units produced in recent years, likely slightly lower due to higher interest rates, inflation, and other market factors.' "
"As for this year so far, Shepard said by email that Kotek 'has been frank that, while progress is being made, we will not solve this crisis overnight.' " [3]
No wonder Kotek's comms people dumped the "focused" bit.
Ahh, the Stability Goodthink Budget, the economic engine of guaranteed government growth for the future of private sector decimation, supported by Oregon government’s greatest strengths, communist feminism (sic), early childhood development pan-sexuality indoctrination, white male castration equality, pedagogy of illiteracy, Cloward-Piven fiduciary responsibility, energy poverty natural resource utilization, pre-term judiciary appointments, womb euthanizing, homeless industrial complex structuring, public union hegemony hierarchy zeitgeist, nitrogen poor soil propagation, pro-diesel fuel non-production, coordinated vote harvesting.
Mencken also said "No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people."
The fact that she emphasizes saving government jobs while saying nothing about fixing demonstrated, persistent failures of state government tells you everything you need to know about the machine's priorities.
I’m in a dark mood this evening, despite the optimism I feel about our country overall. Please, my friends, tell me why I shouldn’t leave this downhill trajectory Oregon ……
Because things change in politics. When I was a newly minted political nerd 20 years ago or so, West Virginia was among the most reliably Democratic states in the country, California had a GOP governor, Virginia was a GOP state and it was unthinkable Hispanics would support Republicans. Weirdly, Oregon may be especially poised for moderation bc of the extent of progressive failure here and it's not THAT expensive (compared to, say, CA) for people outside the cabal to connect with voters.
I would love to see 50% of government workers let go. If we can't do that, they need to stay in the state after retiring to fund the mess they helped fester.
And the only job growth is in government, and healthcare (which is largely supported by Medicaid and Medicare). We’re circling the progressive drain.
So correct Dx. OPM, other peoples money. Dumbed down schools have given society dumbed down citizens. State goals is to register every one of these non informed 'citizens' and make them vote, for more of the same.
Look at a couple issues that can be easily measured - crime and the worst results of drug abuse (overdose deaths).
In 2019 The Democrats (minus only State Sen Betsy Johnson) with the help of 6 Republican legislators gutted the juvenile parts of Measure 11, the twice passed law that means "real time for real crime." For a quarter of a century 17 year olds that committed manslaughter, murder, violent rape, kidnapping and armed robbery actually served sentences ranging from 6 to 25 years (until age 25 in the Oregon Youth Authority) then in Oregon Department of Corrections (ODOC),
As a direct and proximate result of these laws, which forbid using race, class, or social position to vary the sentences, violent crime dramatically dropped in Oregon. But as first Govs. Brown, now Kotek have gutted these sentences, renaming inmates "Adults in Custody." the overall Oregon prison population has dived from about 15,000 when I retired at the end of 2018, to barely 11,000 now.
Are you safer now than in 2018? Not likely, and murders and other violent crimes are up, as ODOC closes parts or entireties of state prisons. The victims of homicides are overwhelmingly people of color.
Connected to increased violent crime are the state's fatal drug overdose rates. While national rates have leveled off in the last three years, Oregon, along with its neighbor states north and south, has managed to keep increasing the fatal drug rate, while at the same time functionally legalizing fentanyl and methamphetamine. Oregon's fatal overdose rates have tripled since 2016. Measure 110 made this even worse and the anemic response in the 2023 legislature has created a new category of non-crime called "deflection," which is so ineffectual Oregon continues to kill more of its addicted population than any other state.
The Attorney General-elect, Dan Rayfield was a big fan of Measure 110, until it became clear Oregonians were fed up, at which point he helped patch together a half-measure that is currently in effect.
Another woke euphemism for adults in custody is "justice involved individuals." God forbid there should be any social stigma attached to breaking the law and being imprisoned for it.
My most recent monthly visit to Portland from the coast was a shock. For the first time I found myself thinking the city may never fully recover from so-called criminal justice reform, a soft-on-crime, hard-left DA, a colossal Measure 110 hangover, inadequate policing and the likely doubling-down in 2025 on progressive policies and programs at the city and county level.
The stretch of S.W. Third Avenue in Old Town between the Steel Bridge off-ramp and Burnside is so infested with the drugged-out homeless and their filth that it could make Haiti look like Switzerland. Downtown businesses that can afford it now station rent-a-cops at their doors. There was so much security at Pioneer Place that a visitor could have been forgiven for thinking a heavyweight VIP was on the premises. Opposite the Gucci window was a sign depicting an alert police-style dog over a message reading "These furry friends are trained to detect firearms and here to keep you safe." OK, but they were nowhere in sight. Were they hanging out in the food court?
On the other side of the river, the nearly empty ice cream case at the Walgreens on Broadway was padlocked. The polite South Asian clerk apologized while remarking about how very much people had been enjoying their FREE ice cream lately. Our condo has recently had to spend nearly $20,000 to replace a front door that thieves were able to penetrate as effortlessly as New York city cockroaches do kitchen cabinets. To top it all off, as I neared the back entrance to the building after parking in our more or less secure parking lot, I was confronted by a fellow resident, a stranger to me, who took one look at me and exclaimed: "HEY! I DON'T KNOW YOU!" That's right: we're under instructions not to admit strangers into the building. Not everyone possesses the tact to pull that off without going to DEFCON 4.
And did I mention that the Portland Clinic on S.W. 13th between Yamhill and Taylor, which has been a fixture in my life since I moved here in the late 70s, has been driven out of its historic location by the presence of Downtown's newest open air drug market across the street? Or the unsightly fence that now surrounds the lovely white walls around the Lan Su Chinese Garden?
Ollie
I agree with you 100%. I believe it will take decades if ever for the City of Portland to recover. It is such a sad very avoidable place the city now finds itself in. The incoming government just found out they now have a $27M budget deficit due to the hidden items the outgoing leadership left.
There is no way this city survives without some serious and instant change in politics and policy. They are bleeding the residents to outlying counties and Washington State, (the ones that can actually pay the bills). When no one is left to suck the money from its the end game and its coming fast.... What a shame.
Can you imagine what the bill would be just for fixing the city's terribly neglected streets, a problem City Hall has avoided approaching for years?
How long will it take for Portland to even have a functioning city government after the transition to the new structure dictated by the city charter? Granted, I don't frequent the city's website, but I expect that by now we'd be seeing evidence of a communications campaign out of City Hall aimed at informing residents about what to expect in the coming weeks and months. I look at the rapidly deteriorating Oregonian daily. Among the scores of sports stories there's the occasional item of hard political news. Nothing so far on setting up the new government.
There is one thing I am learning from The Oregonian. They have a regular real estate porn column listing the week's most expensive house sales in the area. Are they in the West Hills? Dunthorpe? Irvington? No. Lake Oswego, West Linn and even Vancouver have displaced the city's historically coveted neighborhoods when it comes to where the big money is.
Here’s how to get Kotek’s attention: When she makes public appearances, there needs to be someone in the audience holding a sign: “Kristof for Governor.”
Nick Kristof is a resident now. While he’s a tad too progressive for me, he would be an improvement any day over Kotek. Compared to her, he’s almost a centrist. He has some charisma and intelligence.
Best of all, he scares the hell out of her.
In Oregon, Kotek needs to be stopped in the primary.
Kristof would be interesting because he can exist politically outside the progressive machine that runs Oregon due to his name ID and fundraising ability. A strident challenge to Kotek in the primary would not have to come from her right, per se. A fellow progressive could make out the case that Kotek, like Brown before her, is failing by progressive standards.
The loud clang you just heard was me making a 180˚ shift on my position on Mr. Kristof. I'll take him over Tina any day.
However, this time Nick really should skip the "Son of Yamhill Oregon" bit. Many of the leading lights in this country are daddy's boys who hit their first home runs, so to speak, because they were born on third base. That's precisely where Ladis K.D. Kristof positioned young Nick.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reed Magazine
Obituaries
Leading political scientist survived Nazi prison.
Ladis K.D. Kristof ’55
Professor, author, logger, aristocrat, prisoner, refugee, and everything in between, Kris lived a life worthy of an adventure novel, packed with hair-raising escapades no novelist could hope to match.
Born Vladislav Krzysztofowicz in 1918, he was raised on a vast family estate near Bukovina, then part of Austria-Hungary. He grew up speaking seven languages (French, German, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, and Ukrainian), and studied forestry at the University of Poznan. During World War II, his family was imprisoned by the Nazi regime for spying for the Free Poland government. Kris and his father bribed their way out of prison, but other family members perished in Auschwitz and in Soviet labor camps.
After the war, the family estate was seized by the Red Army. Kris fled on horseback. He swam across the Danube River on a moonless night, clinging to an inner tube; unfortunately, the tube developed a leak and he was captured in Yugoslavia. Kris was sent to a concentration camp, and then to an asbestos mine, and finally to a logging camp from which he managed to escape.
He made his way across the border to Italy and finally wound up Paris, where he cleaned hotel rooms and sold wine. There he met an American expatriate from Portland, who helped him emigrate to the U.S. The first thing he did after arriving stateside was to buy a copy of the New York Times to teach himself English. [His only child, Nicholas, would later become a columnist at the Times and would win a Pulitzer Prize.]
Kris took a train to Portland and got a job at the Valsetz logging camp in Polk County. Then a chance meeting with another European refugee, Reed professor Frank Munk [political science, 1939–65], altered the course of his life. He entered Reed a year later, at the age of 37, with little English and even less money. He rented a room off campus, for which he bartered painting and other handyman work; his budget for food was $1 a day.
Although he spent only two years on campus, the experience left an indelible mark, and launched him on a distinguished academic career. Mentored by Munk and by Prof. Maure Goldschmidt ’30 [political science, 1935–81], Kris wrote his thesis on Ukrainian nationalism and the Soviet Union, and applied to the University of Chicago for graduate study, but was turned down.
Goldschmidt wrote to the admission office at Chicago and told them they had made a colossal error, and the decision was reversed. At Chicago, he earned a PhD and met Jane McWilliams; they married in 1956. Kris taught at Temple University, the University of Santa Clara, the University of Waterloo, and Stanford University.
He joined the faculty at Portland State University in 1971, drawn back to Oregon partly for the outdoor lifestyle it supported, but also for its resemblance to the landscape of his native home. Kris and Jane--who is professor emerita of art history at Portland State--purchased a 73-acre farm in Yamhill, harvested cherries and timber, and lined the shelves of their home with their collection of 30,000 books.
Kris was a political scientist of international renown; a Fulbright Scholar to Romania, and a visiting professor at universities in India, Moldova, Poland, and Romania. He retired from Portland State in 1989 but continued to teach, lecture, and hunt elk well into his 80s. He wrote and edited books on an astonishing range of topics, including “The Nature of Frontiers and Boundaries,” “The Origins and Evolution of Geopolitics,” and “The Russian Image of Russia.” He helped found the Portland chapter of Amnesty International, and was active in the World Affairs Council of Oregon, the Western Slavic Association, and the American-Romanian Academy of Arts.
His entry in Who's Who serves as a testimonial to his remarkable life: “War, want, and concentration camps, exile from home and homeland, these have made me hate strife among men, but they have not made me lose faith in the future of mankind. Personal experience . . . has taught me to beware of man's capacity for plain stupid, irrational, as well as consciously evil behavior, but it also has taught me that man has an even greater capacity for recovery from lapses.”
https://www.reed.edu/reed-magazine/in-memoriam/obituaries/_online_only/ladis-kd-kristof-1955.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some dad. Some kid!
Thank you for what you do Jeff!!
Thanks, Seth!
"Billions of dollars and three-quarters of the way through 'Mission Focused,' the three foci have all gotten worse. Housing starts were actually 10% lower in 2023 than 2022 . . ."
Kotek must be secretly thrilled that nobody who matters is pressing her to produce on her plan to build 36,000 new homes per year.
It got off to a good start. Kotek was so focused on attaining that goal that she convened a high-powered panel of developers, builders, lenders, real estate brokers and would-be homeowners with orders to put together a dynamic business-driven plan in 90 days.
Just kidding.
What happened instead would surprise none of the regular readers of Oregon Roundup:
"Kotek’s budget plan calls for the creation of a new Housing Production and Accountability Office focused on working with cities, counties and private developers to speed up housing production. 'The office will also hold local jurisdictions accountable to state housing and land use laws to clear the path to increased housing production in cities and counties,' Kotek’s administration wrote." [1]
That was January 2023. Accomplishments since then include switching the order of the words in the title of the bureaucracy from "Housing Production and Accountability Office" to "Housing Accountability and Production Office (HAPO)" (how long did that take?) and preparing to "stand up" the program. Oregonians waiting for a home to call their own will be delighted to know that:
"After July 1, 2025, HAPO will be able to receive and respond to official inquiries, requests, and complaints from local governments and housing developers. DLCD and DCBS are actively working on staffing and operational tasks to meet this deadline. In the interim, DLCD and DCBS will engage local governments, builders, and advocates to establish the structures and practices of the office. The agencies have $4 million in technical assistance in the form of grant funds to support updates and fixes to local government residential zoning codes that remove regulatory barriers to housing production, affordability, and choice."
How will HAPO help make 36,000 new homes per year? Why, it's a no-brainer!
"We partner with local governments and housing developers to navigate the complexities of state housing laws related to land use and permitting. Our services include providing funding, guidance, and technical support to minimize barriers to housing production and ensure compliance with state laws and regulations."
"We approach compliance concerns with a spirit of collaboration and problem-solving. HAPO investigates complaints to identify ways local governments may have challenges meeting state housing laws. If a violation is found, we prioritize offering technical support, model codes, and resources to local governments to address it."
That's right. Kotek wants us to think that if municipalities just tweak their building codes and put in enough infrastructure, 36,000 homes will spring up overnight like toadstools after a rain.
If you're worried that Kotek's ambitious housing plans will come to nothing, you should be:
"Kotek spokesperson Elisabeth Shepard acknowledged [that the governor’s plans are up against economic realities that will take time to resolve], saying 2023 housing permits were 'roughly in line with the 18,000 to 20,000 units produced in recent years, likely slightly lower due to higher interest rates, inflation, and other market factors.' "
"As for this year so far, Shepard said by email that Kotek 'has been frank that, while progress is being made, we will not solve this crisis overnight.' " [3]
No wonder Kotek's comms people dumped the "focused" bit.
[1] Borrud, Hillary. "Gov. Tina Kotek pitches big spending on housing and behavioral health, amid economic uncertainty." OregonLive/The Oregonian. 31 January 2023. https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2023/01/gov-tina-kotek-pitches-big-spending-on-housing-and-behavioral-health-amid-economic-uncertainty.html
[2] State of Oregon. Department of Land Conservation and Development. Housing Program. Housing Accountability and Production Office. https://www.oregon.gov/lcd/Housing/Pages/Housing-Accountability-and-Production-Office.aspx
[3] Bach, Jonathan. "Oregon still far from Gov. Kotek’s 36,000 new homes a year." OregonLive/The Oregonian. 3 August 2024. https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2024/08/oregon-still-far-from-gov-koteks-36000-new-homes-a-year.html
But, Ollie, if she just stays focused on her three priorities and spends as much money as humanly possible on them, they will be fixed. Right?
YEP!!! dream on. and keep up the fight, you are our only voice in the wilderness.
Great article!! Shedding light on the ways of our crooked “leaders.”
Ahh, the Stability Goodthink Budget, the economic engine of guaranteed government growth for the future of private sector decimation, supported by Oregon government’s greatest strengths, communist feminism (sic), early childhood development pan-sexuality indoctrination, white male castration equality, pedagogy of illiteracy, Cloward-Piven fiduciary responsibility, energy poverty natural resource utilization, pre-term judiciary appointments, womb euthanizing, homeless industrial complex structuring, public union hegemony hierarchy zeitgeist, nitrogen poor soil propagation, pro-diesel fuel non-production, coordinated vote harvesting.
whistling past the graveyard... but what else can we do? DON'T STOP TRYING!
Mencken also said "No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people."
If you are Retired and on a fixed income Oregon is not the place to be. Property Taxes
will continue to increase and not your income.
‘Saving’ government jobs is a curious way to put it, since Kotek and her ilk control the number of jobs. Such nonsense!
The fact that she emphasizes saving government jobs while saying nothing about fixing demonstrated, persistent failures of state government tells you everything you need to know about the machine's priorities.
I’m in a dark mood this evening, despite the optimism I feel about our country overall. Please, my friends, tell me why I shouldn’t leave this downhill trajectory Oregon ……
Because things change in politics. When I was a newly minted political nerd 20 years ago or so, West Virginia was among the most reliably Democratic states in the country, California had a GOP governor, Virginia was a GOP state and it was unthinkable Hispanics would support Republicans. Weirdly, Oregon may be especially poised for moderation bc of the extent of progressive failure here and it's not THAT expensive (compared to, say, CA) for people outside the cabal to connect with voters.
there was an Edmund G. Brown before his idiot son became popular, and he was a democrat, when they were still rational.
Oh I’m leaving when I can. I’m not anti-tax just tired of my tax money being wasted. Especially true for me since I’m in Multnomah County.
" largely supported by Medicaid and Medicare", which themselves are troubled and may burden state governments more going forward under Trump.
Medicaid looses money for healthcare providers for most services Medicare is only slight better but still is often less than the costs of services
I would love to see 50% of government workers let go. If we can't do that, they need to stay in the state after retiring to fund the mess they helped fester.
Yes! An Oregon DOGE!
Oregon is the antithesis of DOGE.
That would be fantastic. The only thing that bureaucrats "grow" is more bureaucracy.
Oregon will never recover from mail in voting! Multnomah County cheats!
Where's the proof?
endvbm.com Something must change.
that DOES seem to have presaged the beginning of the demise.
DEMONRATS, stealing for their wealth since I was born. I can't wait for this money laundering to be exposed! Kotex is American hating garbage!
Both Democrats and Republicans do this.