Mayor Ted Wheeler recently voiced his support in moving forward with a pilot program to implement a gunshot-detection technology called ShotSpotter with the intent to reduce gun violence in Portland….
Crime crunch
The past few years have seen a precipitous rise in crime across Portland. The Portland Police Bureau’s online reporting shows a rise in reported criminal activity from July 2021 to…
Cars or people?
With the installation of the Blumenauer Bicycle Bridge, I have to ask if perhaps some of Portland’s more pressing issues could have been addressed with the tax money spent on…
Open Letter to the Student Fee Committee
Letters to the Editor are unpaid guest submissions from our readers. The opinions, attitudes and beliefs expressed by the writer(s) are solely those of the author, and do not necessarily…
Rent stabilization isn’t living up to its name
Earlier this month, Oregon announced that the allowable rent price increase for 2023 will be capped at 14.6%—the largest increase since SB 608 passed in 2019 and a huge leap…
Burnin’ down the house
2020 was an eventful year, with the new COVID-19 pandemic and the nationwide uprising for Black lives and police abolition after the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. In…
Cashing in on the magic
A renaissance for psychedelic drugs seems to be on the horizon, and we are ahead of the curve here in Oregon as voters approved the legalization of psychedelic psilocybin mushrooms…
Betsy Johnson is Independent in name only
It’s that time again. Nov. 8, 2022 is election day and we have already been beaten down by the onslaught of political ads for several months now. With our current…
Oregon’s green legislature isn’t enough
There has been a constant and growing pall of existential dread for Generation Z, millennials and Generation X alike when looking at the overwhelming data around climate change. For much…
Private security is a mirage
For the past few years, downtown Portland businesses have increasingly begun to hire security guards in order to protect their property from those most affected by the many crises of…
Ted Wheeler is a false progressive
By now it is doubtful that many people—regardless of whether they reside within or without the city of Portland—have illusions about the authenticity of Ted Wheeler’s portrayal as a progressive….