Portland City Council

What The Hell Is The Matter With This Council?

author: Lone Vet        e-mail: lonevet2008@comcast.net

Let's have the cop screw with everyone!

Sit-Lie sucks!

What The Hell Is The Matter With This Council? We were outside the City Council for our weekly protest against Portland joining the Joint Terrorist Task Force, The Sit-Lie ordinance and the water rate increase when Dan from Cop-Watch told us of a woman who was going to confront the Council about being harassed by a Portland Police Officer when she sat down to rest at the 6th Ave. Max station. She had her young son in a stroller and decided to sit on the stone wall that surrounds the Federal Courthouse. There were other people sitting, so she thought it would be OK for her to rest for a time. The new Sit-Lie (Lie) ordinance makes this illegal, even if you are just going to rest for a few minutes. A police officer approached her and ordered her off the wall in a way that upset her so much that she took the time to come before the City Council to report the incident and maybe hope for an apology; what she got was BS. Our mayor thanked her for coming in his normal dismissive way. Fish and Saltzman had the good sense to be quiet but not our Amanda. Commissioner Fritz thanked her for coming and made a statement that cause my head to hurt. She thanked the woman for reporting the incident and added that the city has been criticized for using the new ordinance against just "Houseless" persons and it was good that the police were being even handed when telling people to move. I almost threw up my breakfast. After the woman completed her story I applauded and that caused our dear mayor to tell me that applauding was not allowed. I said something about him being a dictator and did my Irish walk-out and rejoined my friend outside to continue our protest. The thought I had when leaving the council chamber was, we now have equal harassment of our citizens by the police, "Isn't that special!" First and foremost, the police have questionable jurisdiction here because the wall in question surrounding the Federal Courthouse is federal property and it is the Federal Marshals that have jurisdiction, not the PoPo. In our tight budget times it seems the cops should just deal with their responsibilities and not go shopping for new work. A friend and brother just told me a story of a security guard trying to give him a hard time for sitting on the wall, security guards have no more authority to tell you to move from a Federal Building, wall or grounds than any other citizen. I am ashamed of this council, they don't get it and do not understand that they just look stupid during these encounters and run the risk of causing an incident with these ill thought out ordinances that they keep passing. Mayor Adams, Commissioners Fritz and Leonard are all up for re-election in 2012, they should all be defeated. For Justice,Peace and *Laughter, Joe Walsh-Lone Vet Individuals for Justice Veterans Against Torture Proud member of Oregon Progressive Party,  http://progparty.org/ War is failure, occupation a disgrace! "Funding these wars is killing our troops"  http://www.mfso.org/ * Why laughter?? Because without it I would have gone insane years ago. Sen. ** harry reid must be replaced as Majority Leader, call me when you agree or just go away! An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching. Mohandas Gandhi Thoreau may have also brooded over the reaction of Emerson, who criticized the imprisonment as pointless. According to some accounts, Emerson visited Thoreau in jail and asked, "Henry, what are you doing in there?" Thoreau replied, "Waldo, the question is what are you doing out there?" Molly Ivins, "It's like, duh. Just when you thought there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between the two parties, the Republicans go and prove you're wrong."