Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

OurWhoresAreClean t1_iqsjlqb wrote

I'll give you all the TLDR of the proposed changes:

  1. A standard boilerplate "Land Acknowledgement" that basically says "we Europeans stole Portland from the natives." It tells nobody anything they didn't already know, does nothing to help the people it's speaking to, and functions essentially as a religious ritual or prayer, similar to the Catholic rite of confession. The only people it will appeal to are those who have a preference for performative gestures over substantive action (i.e., Portland's electorate).
  2. Various proposed changes to the structure of Portland's city government in order to make it more "democratic", a word that members of the Charter Commission use to mean "more in line with my personal preferences". Said changes are unlikely to make the government function any better but will appeal to people who have an unjustified optimism regarding technocratic tinkering because it flatters their self-image by sounding vaguely "scientific" (i.e., Portland's electorate).
  3. A proposal for a clean elections fund, the purpose of which is to allow poorer candidates the chance to run for public office and prove that they can fuck things up just as well as their wealthier rivals. There's also a proposal to ban campaign donations from businesses and foreign-owned entities, and to create a publicly-searchable database to track donations in order to better facilitate the harassment of those who choose to participate in the democratic process in the wrong way.
  4. Changes to how RCV works in local elections. Real talk: I tried to read it but had to stop, because any discussion of RCV makes me fall asleep.
  5. A proposal for removing the School Board (and its budgetary process) from the purview of the City Council. The School Board will set its own budget, which will then be approved by voters directly. While unlikely to result in better outcomes for the city's students, this will undoubtedly be a boon for the useless class of people who work in education administration. This proposal is possibly illegal and has a 100% possibility of causing more governmental dysfunction through unintended consequences, neither of which appear to have bothered the Charter Commission much.
  6. Codifies the existence of the Peaks Island Council into the city charter, for reasons that are unclear and probably unnecessary. This one is so boring I can't even think of anything mean to say about it. On the upside, that means there's at least an outside chance that it will be harmless.
  7. A much tamer than expected proposal to replace the Portland Citizen Review Subcommittee with a newly-created Civilian Policy Review Board that will supposedly have some extra powers but which, on the whole, sounds pretty much like business-as-usual. You get the sense that the Charter Commission would have liked to go further but had to contend with the unpleasant reality that, contrary to their most deeply-held wishes, Portland's police department isn't actually that bad.
  8. A proposal to establish a Star Chamber Inquisition Ethics Commission to deal with all things ethics-related. One of the functions of said commission will be to draft a Code of Ethics, which can then be used as a weapon in various petty rivalries among city employees. The concept of such a commission is likely to appeal to the sort people who enjoy seeing their own vanity codified and who use idiotic expressions like "the appearance of impropriety" because they've lost all ability to distinguish between image and reality (i.e., Portland's electorate--see also: Item 1 above).
2

OustedStrongman t1_iqt8rcq wrote

pretty long for a tldr

5