Dear Friends:
By raising your voice and getting involved, you helped to change the debate and direction of Portland. Thank you.
Three years ago, in the midst of a civic, political, and public safety crisis, People for Portland stepped forward. When others were intimidated into silence or pandering to a loud minority, we amplified the voices of the majority of Portlanders. And for the past 1,000+ days, you have done just that – agitating, advocating and yes, annoying elected officials – to do more to rescue our broken city.
When we began, police were being defunded and disrespected, rioting and vandalism was rationalized, camping on streets and sidewalks was accepted, rampant garbage and graffiti was tolerated, open-air drug use was exploding and marketing propaganda from the homeless industrial complex and the drug legalization zealots went unchallenged. Portland politicians were paralyzed, Multnomah county politicians were out of control and state politicians were nowhere to be found.
In the face of this crisis, and with your strong support, People for Portland went to work every day – urging elected officials to take stronger action on public safety, homelessness, drugs and trash. Our goal was to make every day feel like an election day for local politicians. And while results from elected officials have frequently fallen short of our expectations, the grassroots response from Portlanders has always exceeded our expectations.
At the outset, we were viciously attacked and even called racist for saying out loud what 75% of Portlanders already knew to be true: that Portland was broken, that our elected officials were failing our city and that we needed more police and shelter beds in our community and less drugs, crime and trash on city streets. Finally, last December, we were vindicated when a community task force led by Governor Kotek endorsed many of the same things we had been advocating for the previous two years.
If nothing else, piercing the denial of reality and empowering others to break the conspiracy of silence, may be the most important legacy of People for Portland. Our job has always been to channel your frustration into positive action to drive change. What began as a reaction became a movement, and now it doesn’t take courage to say we need more police on the streets, more shelter beds, more effective mental health intervention and that the government should stop enabling the scourge of hard drug use. In fact, candidates for office are now successfully running on those issues.
The work of fixing Portland is far from over – public safety, homelessness, drugs, trash and graffiti remain big problems. But the crisis of recent years has passed. We have changed the direction of the city and, therefore, the work of People for Portland can now come to an end. We can’t say we’ve fixed Portland, but we had a positive impact, pushed common-sense back into policymaking and empowered more people in the majority to speak-up and get involved.
We never set out to become part of the establishment or another lobbying group just adding to the noise. We know we changed the debate, but now it will take changing the people doing the talking to get Portland where it needs to go. With a historic election just days away, the future of Portland is in the hands of voters to select new pragmatic leaders to steer Portland and Multnomah County in a more reasonable, accountable and safer direction.
Together, we accomplished a lot:
Activating Grassroots Power – We built a grassroots network of more than 35,000 people on email and social media to amplify the voices of the majority of Portland voters. We posted thousands of messages on social media and delivered more than one million email messages to local and state politicians advocating for policy change. More than 3,000 of you generously donated to power our cause.
Supporting Our Police – We flipped the debate from defunding the police to reinvesting in the police and fought for funding increases to hire and train more new officers. Portland still has 350-400 too few officers for a city our size, but that is now an accepted fact, not dismissed as a myth. In addition, after a decade of dithering and delays, we pushed hard for the city council to finally approve and fund body cameras on police officers, promoting transparency and accountability.
The Schmidt Show – We put a big spotlight (and a few billboards) on the actions of Mike Schmidt, an out-of-touch, ideologically driven District Attorney. We put a spotlight on his policy and leadership failures to restore order, hold lawbreakers accountable and keep Portlanders safe.
Pushing a Camping Ban – We were the first and loudest voice advocating for the mayor, city council and county sheriff to pass and enforce a ban on public camping. After three attempts, the city council unanimously passed a ban that is now being enforced. The county will likely soon follow.
Rolling Back Measure 110 – We pushed local officials, the Governor and state lawmakers to recriminalize hard drugs like fentanyl, meth and heroin and end open air drug use on city streets. We also forced Multnomah County to stop handing out taxpayer funded drug paraphernalia.
Calling Out Corruption – We were the first to declare the county-run joint office of homeless services “broken and corrupt” and to call for its director to be fired (he resigned). We also put the media spotlight on systemic failures of the taxpayer funded homeless industrial complex, driving greater scrutiny and reforms.
We also had setbacks.
The Homeless Tax & Shelters – Over the fierce opposition of local politicians and the homeless industrial complex, we proposed a ballot initiative to require a fixed percentage of the ten-year, $2.5 billion regional homeless tax be spent on much-needed emergency shelters. Unfortunately, a Multnomah County judge stopped us from being able to go to the ballot. Even worse, today, local governments still aren’t creating enough shelter beds, the homeless tax is expected to raise $1 billion more than expected and some local politicians are plotting to extend the tax beyond its original ten-year expiration date.
While we are ending our day-to-day work, we will keep a close eye on what local politicians are doing – or not doing. You should too. Every one of us remains dedicated to maintaining the momentum to rescue the city we all love.
Thank you to everyone who donated and took action with elected officials. Thank you to everyone who stood with us in face of relentless attacks, and for everyone still fighting for the city we love. You are making a difference. Keep raising your voice and taking action. Democracy is not a spectator sport.
Thank you,
People for Portland