Wiping the coffee off the monitor

Good ol’ Oregonian editorial board. I’ve been a busy woman the past couple of weeks, with a trip to Ashland, two to Eugene, two debates on Charter reform, and working (in the job I get paid for) until midnight both evenings this weekend. You know you’re not exactly looking like Little Miss Sunshine when your daughter, who has spent the last fifteen minutes complaining about how hard it is to get up and go to school, suddenly bursts out laughing while I’m driving her there, and says, “Wow, your face looks like a tired Mommy! Your eyes are extra-wide open like you’re working really hard at it.” Then after dropping her off, it’s on to grocery shopping, cleaning the cat litter, tidying the kitchen… all the things I doubt Hillary Clinton has to worry about. In short, I’m struggling a bit this morning.

Then, because it’s another item on the Things I Do In The Morning list, I click on “And now a message from our sponsors…”, on the Oregonian‘s editorial page. Well, whaddaya know, it’s talking about the Portland Parks & Recreation (PPR) Sponsorship and Naming policies. What a coincidence – my friend the checker at Fred Meyer was just asking me, “Did I see you on TV last week? I was flipping through the channels and I thought I saw you. Do you do that often? I didn’t stay there long….”. No kidding. Wish I hadn’t had to spend the entire morning there, either.

And we have this gem:

“These policies are so low-key, innocuous and unobjectionable that they could have been approved administratively by City Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who oversees parks, and not many folks would have been much the wiser.

But Saltzman was wise, instead, to air these policies with the community and the council.”

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!! That is hilarious! Or maybe I’m delirious. But either way, what a whopper! The policies were approved administratively. The main reason they were on the Council agenda was because citizens pointed that out and pushed for public review.

I love the way the editorial misses the core issue here, too:

“Less than half of the bureau’s $72 million budget comes from the city’s discretionary general fund, after all; the rest must come from other sources.”

That’s right, citizens, funding for parks MUST come from other sources. Never mind that providing parks is one of the 65 Specific Powers of the City Council listed in the Charter the Oregonian‘s Board so desperately wants to change (no, I’m not linking to their editorial yesterday – it was the same old-same old Give Us More Power spiel). Never mind that voters agree to operating and capital improvement levies time after time, only to have Council undercut core General Fund allocations for PPR. Let’s not mention that fact, that citizens too are ponying up extra money for parks, with no special recognition. Let’s not mention recent reductions in business taxes, or those franchise fee cuts that wise Dan Saltzman pushed through several years ago, resulting in 10 cents a month savings to homeowners, $3m for business consumers. The O states assertion as fact, leaving out the real ones. And of course, the O sees absolutely no problem with Nike swooshes on publicly-owned basketball courts in parks.

Well, deep breath, and onward to the rest of the week. Thanks for the laugh-out-loud, burst of energy, and motivation to get this post up, Oregonian. And thanks for reminding me why I do this blog, and why I do what I do in the community. Someone has to push the other side of the story.