If we are not part of the conversation or listening to the conversation, then what are we here for? For me the conversation takes many forms today. My personal preferred way is face to face. But that’s not always the way it happens or needs to happen.

We have at our fingertips tool after tool to have a conversation with people that we might not otherwise be able to have a conversation with. Those tools seem to grow in number as much as in controversy, Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Yelp, Brightkite, Text … do I need to list more? And any site you can go to that offers a tool or tools to communicate or measure communication is about listening to the conversation.

Yesterday, I saw this tweet:

So, of course I click the link for OregonLive to read Anna Griffin’s post on OregonLive. “Sam Adams needs to toss Twitter and get back to the big picture for Portland” By Anna Griffin. Really? I disagree. I sometimes wonder what people are really annoyed or mad about when they write something like this? He is the Mayor. Twitter is one of the most transparent communication tools today!

“This is attention-deficit governing, driven by insecurity and enabled by the iPhone. In the short term, it creates the false sheen of engagement. Over the long haul, it’s no way to build public support for the hard and expensive decisions to come.”

False sheen of engagement? Engagement is engagement, Twitter is immediate and it’s timely. And why not use any tool available to build public support?

It would be like me saying: “I think the radio creates a false sheen of engagement because they are driven by sales and their advertisers have agendas contrary to mine. So Mayor Adams should dump any communication with radio.” Right — dumb, ill advised and limiting. Not to mention narrow-minded.

I find it so curious that people will participate in the very thing that they are complaining about. Instead of accepting the change and adapting to progress they fight it. The conversation is going to happen whether any of us want it to or not. So will we participate in it and use it for good? Or will we fight it and try to limit how we connect and tell others how they should communicate?

Email opened lines of communication like never before. We could read an article on line, email the author, and they would respond. Now we can mention a favorite author or individual on Twitter and the chances of you getting that “@someone is now following you on Twitter”, is pretty high. They are listening! And they’d better be!

If you’ve read the book “Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work & in Life, One Conversation at a Time” by Susan Scott, you are familiar with “Our careers, companies and relationships succeed or fail, gradually then suddenly—one conversation at a time.” and “No one engages; nothing changes.” If you haven’t read the book, I recommend it!

Susan writes, “Yes, the conversation is the relationship. One conversation at a time, you are building, destroying, or flatlining your relationships. It is possible, however, to create high-intimacy, low-maintenance relationships – one relatively brief conversation at a time.”

Are you listening to the conversation?

Related Posts

• October 6, 2009 -- Adams Recall Effort Fails; Backers Kick Off New Approach (3)
• January 29, 2009 -- What Twitter could have given Sam, and Portland (9)
• January 26, 2009 -- From Our Mailbox: An open letter to the media (1)
• November 5, 2009 -- Twitterpated Over Stephanie Stricklen (1)
• October 9, 2009 -- OurPDX Shared Links for October 9th (0)

I’m working on a piece for tomorrow about experiences parking in downtown Portland.

Yes, it’s a follow-up to this piece. Yes, it involves a towing story or two. And yes, I’ve already gotten a ton of feedback in email, thanks to a Twitter call out earlier today. But I want to include your experiences & thoughts as well as part of the story.

So if you’ve got one to share, please email me: betsy@ourpdx.com. (If you’d prefer to remain anonymous, that’s fine – just let me know how you’d like to be credited when you email.)

Thanks in advance!

And in the meantime — did you know you can pay your parking tickets online? Well, yes you can. And I’d suggest you do so if you have even one outstanding parking ticket ASAP, lest your own car be towed without warning.

Related Posts

• November 17, 2009 -- Drive to Downtown PDX? Not Any More… (15)
• June 22, 2009 -- Parking Garage Nostalgia (2)
• September 22, 2008 -- No more parking on 5th and 6th (2)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: “Businesses don’t pay taxes; they just pass the cost of taxes on to—“

OK, so you’ve heard that. Most recently, you probably heard that from the opponents of Measures 66 and 67. One of their arguments is that Measure 67 in particular is nothing more than a sales tax, because businesses will raise their prices to cover the tax.

That notion is a myth that needs to be busted. Either the opponents have never taken an economics class or, more probably, they assume you haven’t.

Businesses will stick consumers with any increase in costs — labor, supplies, rents and taxes — if they can get away with it. But that’s a big if.

Let’s go back to Econ 101, where you learn about supply, demand, pricing curves and economies of scale. (I know, it was a boring class, so we’ll just go over the Cliff Notes.) Essentially, businesses have two goals that have to be balanced against each other: 1) charge as much as they can for their products or services and 2) acquire as many customers as possible.

Say I have a burrito stand downtown. If I price my burritos at $1 (and the quality is as good as any others), I’d have so many customers, they’d be lining up for blocks. But I’d go broke because $1 wouldn’t cover the cost of ingredients, rent and other expenses. At about $3 per burrito, I’d break even but make no profit. From what I’ve observed, burrito stand operators can make a living with a $4.50 – $5 burrito. If I charged $10 for a basic burrito, I’d make a lot more money per burrito, but I’d go out of business because I wouldn’t have enough customers, if any.

What happens then if the price of beans jumps 50 percent? I could figure out how much more money it takes to make a burrito and tack that onto my price, maybe bump it up a quarter or fifty cents. Since all other burrito carts are subject to the same price of beans, they also raise their prices — all except Enrique down on the next block. He keeps his prices lower and gets more customers. He’s not losing money, because the extra volume makes up for the lower margin. So that forces me to lower my prices as well. Eventually all the burrito stands end up back at the same price and have to figure out some other way to make up the lost profit.

In a competitive free enterprise environment, businesses will do anything to avoid losing market share. They will take losses for awhile, or cut costs or reconfigure their business model and offer different products or services. In fact, they are constantly doing all of this. Raising prices, especially in a down economy, is going to cost market share unless they can come up with compelling reasons to charge more.

So what’s going to happen to businesses if they can’t raise prices and their taxes go up? Are they going to lay off workers? Go out of business? Probably not if they have survived the past year.

You’ve heard about, and very possibly experienced, the Great Recession of 2009. Depending on which economists you trust, it is either over or it isn’t. For the past year, however, businesses have already been laying off employees, cutting other expenses and scratching out a buck any way they can.

Recessions are like long juice fasts in which businesses purge toxic elements from their systems. When businesses are in growth mode, they often have to hire people they wouldn’t otherwise want to employ. Recessions give them an opportunity to trim the deadwood. Recessions force businesses to rethink every part of their operations and that makes them better. Most companies have cut hours and employees over the past year to the point they can’t cut any more and operate efficiently.

I have a friend who is vice president of a moderately sized company that manufactures and markets upscale tile. A year ago, he had to go through the horrific process of laying off a fifth of the company’s employees due to rapidly declining sales, since demand for its products was affected by the implosion of the housing market. He absolutely hated having to cut so many jobs. A few weeks ago, however, he told me the company finished the year with a decent profit despite a $2 million drop in sales. And the company president and owner took his annual month-long vacation to Cancun as usual.

The leasing agent for a firm that owns a big chunk of southeast Portland property recently mentioned that Starbucks sent him a letter demanding a 25 percent reduction in its rents (the firm leases to Starbucks in two locations). He said the same letter had been sent to every Starbucks landlord in the U.S. Given that Starbucks was closing down hundreds of stores, the company had a lot of leverage behind its demand.

Starbucks’ stock price has nearly tripled in the past year. Intel’s shares are up more than 50 percent. Stock prices for most of those banks we all bailed out are up double or better. In fact, most of the market has recovered from the precipitous fall it took 15 months ago. The big corporations are making big profits again. These are the companies that will pay the most under Measure 67. Some of the biggest will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars more, and it will come out of those profits.

They have done pretty well, considering. Many of the rest of us haven’t. It’s only fair they pick up a bit more of the tab on public education and the other essential services that these ballot measures will protect.

The burrito stand? Under Measures 66/67, it will pay $150 minimum tax — or less than a penny per burrito.

Related Posts

• January 10, 2010 -- A Statement Left Out of the Voter’s Pamphlet…??? (11)

Yes, it’s time for another election — this time, the January 26th Special Election. Registered voters have already received their Voters Guide, with ballots due any day now. But we’ve uncovered a statement from a concerned citizen that inexplicably didn’t make it in the Voters Guide. We’re republishing it here in its entirety, well, just because…

Dear “Fellow” Oregonians,

I know it’s very tempting to raise taxes on those who are better, er, better off, than you. You may think it will be no skin off your nose — a nose which, unlike the gallant captains of industry, has never been put to the grindstone. You may be persuaded by arguments that the government “needs” our money, as if we didn’t need it ourselves.

Please consider the consequences of approving Measures 66 and 67. Measure 66 would add a confiscatory 1.8% surtax on individual income above $125,000 (or above $250,000 for a married couple). Do you think that’s pocket change for those of us who have the kind of income and life that you all want? Of course not.

For example, take the poor couple who bring home a mere $500,000 a year. If Measure 66 passes, that extra tax will most likely keep them from hiring an au pair from France to look after their kids during the summer, thus depriving our state of an opportunity to develop friendship between nations.

Or consider the heiress whose annual stipend from the family’s estate comes to a measly $3 million annually. The surtax on the income would cost jobs for ordinary people. Since I find myself in this predicament, I know I would have to lay off the crew that is renovating my stables with imported tile and granite, perhaps forcing these hardy young men to return to whatever country they came from.

We really can’t afford to be losing jobs in this dire economic climate. Who but the wealthy can create jobs by investing their money in important ventures? Those with wealth also have the insight as to which investments will pay off. The stock market is a total mess at the moment, and nobody with any brains would throw money into a start-up small business (the majority of which fail). No, there are superior options, such as “life settlements“.

Yes, by purchasing life insurance policies from elderly people (and betting that they die early so we can cash in), we are not only providing economic stimulus to needy families, but also keeping the deserving bankers at Goldman Sachs employed during these difficult times.

Now as for Measure 67, it’s just criminal to make a corporation pay taxes when it doesn’t show a taxable profit. For example, my father’s corporation has not shown a profit for years. Why should it be gouged by the government to pay taxes? I must assure you, however, this company is a very good investment that has yielded an average 5 per cent annual dividend. How can that happen without a taxable profit? The operative word is taxable. With tax credits and loss carry forward, all of its profits magically disappear! What’s the use of good accountants if you still have to pay taxes?

Remember, what’s good for the big corporations is good for Oregon. And who knows, you just might win the lottery and become rich yourself. Then you will understand how I feel. Please vote “No” on Measures 66 and 67.

Ava Rishus-Lee
Oregonians Against Job-Killing Child-Molesting Baby-Seal-Bashing Vomit-Spewing Flesh-Eating Taxes

(Editor’s Note: Gil is yet another new OurPDX author. Please welcome him to our ranks!)

Related Posts

• January 20, 2010 -- Measures 66 & 67: Let’s Do The Math (6)

…that you can still enter to win Xanadu tickets by playing the Xanadu trivia contest on Twitter? Follow @ourpdx & we’ll send out today’s question at 12 noon. First person to respond (yes, on Twitter!) will be entered into a drawing; winner will be chosen on Saturday & will receive ticket’s for Saturday’s opening night performance! Not on Twitter? Sadly, you’re missing out on a chance to win tickets, among other things…

(The rules & regs are in Morgan’s post here; congrats to @divebarwife, @taradublinrocks & @ladygeek, who got their responses in less than 9 minutes on average!)

…you can also still get tickets for the Marysville Elementary School Auction tomorrow night at 6 pm. Can’t go? There’s a handy donation link there as well. Need the backstory? Get it here, here, or there.

…PDX.fm has 2 channels now? Go see! (I’m already a fan of @zanger’s new 9 am showThe Life Portlandic, even before he said nice stuff about us…!)

What do you know that we should know…?

Related Posts

• January 13, 2010 -- There Were Disco Balls and Legwarmers of Power (3)
• January 3, 2010 -- Free Inspiration! (6)
• January 9, 2010 -- Xanadu: And The Winner Is… (4)
• January 8, 2010 -- Xanadu is Muse-ical! (1)
• February 2, 2010 -- LOST? Found… (1)

Although injuries knock their stars flat,
The Blazers will go to the mat.
Though their line-up grows lean
They’ll still field a team:
Three rookies, one coach, and Trail Cat.

When you marry you think it’s forever,
And it’s fine to be sad when it’s over.
But no matter how mad
You might be at their dad,
You DON’T throw your kids in the river.

Supposedly we’ve turned the corner,
the Recession is finally over,
I’m sure that sounds fine,
to the folks standing in line,
at the soup kitchen waiting for dinner.

The Westside got told what to do:
Boil tapwater a minute or two.
I wonder what’s odder,
boiling our own water,
or that fact that we’re drinking bird poo?

We hope you enjoy New Year’s Eve.
And you spend a day off at your ease.
But please keep in mind,
as you’re watching halftime,
The Oregonians at war overseas.

(Editor’s note: We invite you to add your own in the comments. Or should we say, we dare you….!)

Related Posts

• December 4, 2009 -- What is the Sound of One Man Clapping? (7)
• November 19, 2009 -- OurPDX shared links for November 19th (1)
• November 8, 2009 -- Blazer Fever – Don’t Catch It (0)
• June 24, 2009 -- Hold on to that feeling (1)
• April 28, 2009 -- OurPDX shared links for April 28th (1)

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest. I understand that the entire delicate network of our civilization collapses whenever two snowflakes fall within a minute of each other. Heck, I probably only drove in honest-to-goodness snow two or three times the entire time I was in high school.

I, however, had the good fortune to attend Winter Driving Boot Camp, otherwise known as winter in east central Illinois, where you don’t have the luxury of staying home because there is snow on the ground. To be fair, it’s a lot easier to drive on snow in east central Illinois because there are no hills and all the roads run in perfectly straight lines. Nevertheless, there are certain skills associated with maneuvering a ton or more of motor vehicle on a slick surface, skills that don’t get much honing in our beloved Stumptown.

But none of that could possibly justify the Mongolian cluster-f*ck that was traffic in PDX last night.

As the snow started falling in earnest, and perhaps upon seeing the panic in their employees’ eyes, my employer closed the office early to give everybody a chance to get home before it got worse. I delayed a bit, tidying up a few loose ends, and I left the office just a bit after 4:30.

I headed toward highway 26, but soon ran into traffic backed up from Canyon all the way past Lincoln high school, so I decided to turn around and get on Broadway. I drove back into downtown on Salmon, and shortly ran into gridlock, as in the traffic lights were cycling, but nothing was moving an inch. After five or ten minutes idling in place, I turned and made my way down along the south park blocks, until I found an opportunity to get over to Broadway. Once on Broadway, I reasoned, traffic would be moving better.

Wrong. Traffic on Broadway was crawling. Looking back at the evening, this is when things went straight to hell. As Broadway runs south into PSU, it runs uphill. It’s not much of a slope, but you know it if you’re riding a bike. Or are trying to drive on ice. I began to spin out whenever I tried to creep forward, a very unpleasant situation in stop-and-creep traffic. What’s worse, with the snow covering up the lane lines, Broadway once again became three lanes, and I was trapped in the center lane. Even if I got to the side, there was no room to put on chains. Feeling steadily more and more trapped, I kept creeping up the hill, a few feet at a time, front wheels spinning furiously.

Once I got to where Broadway crosses 405, my worst fears were realized: I couldn’t make it up the hill. Spin as they might, I couldn’t get any traction with the front wheels. By this time, I’d made it to the right lane, and there was some room at the side of the road, so I backed over to the side and put my chains on. Which wasn’t easy. Because I have bad knees. And no gloves. And I had to start over when I realized I was putting them on backwards, but I persevered.

And just as I finished tightening the chains and stepped away from the car a Tri-Met bus fishtailed over and took the side mirror off my little Corolla.

By some miracle, the bus only took out my driver’s side mirror. I quickly whipped out my phone and snapped a pic of the license plate of the bus, in case the driver simply didn’t realize he’d hit me and kept going.

I was actually very lucky. A few more inches and I would have lost the driver’s-side door and front quarter-panel. A few minutes earlier, and it would have been ME that got crunched as I crouched by the front wheel putting on chains.

I needn’t have worried about the bus making a speedy getaway. It couldn’t make it up the hill over 405 either. It swung back and forth as it tried, like some primordial leviathan struggling in a net, until it was finally exhausted, and made its way slowly to the curb. After a moment, the driver emerged and walked towards me.

“Um…did I…?” he asked.

“Yup.” I said.

The Tri-Met driver was completely cordial, and immediately retrieved the necessary paperwork from his bus. We exchanged information, and I took down the names and numbers of a couple of witnesses (just in case). With that taken care of, I still had to get my poor abused Corolla back home. By now it had been at least two hours since I started home. “Surely” I thought “traffic is moving a little better by now.”

HA!!

I crawled, and I do mean crawled, painfully up and over 405, and then stopped, because nothing was moving. There, at the confluence of Broadway, Broadway Drive, the off-ramp from 405, and 6th and 5th avenues, it was a big parking lot. As far as the eye could see, nothing was moving. I sat there for at least 20 minutes, hemmed in and not moving a single Goddamn inch. Eventually, and oh so slowly, we crept down the hill. Like molasses flowing downhill in January, I crept down Broadway towards Barbur Boulevard. At one point I tweeted that I had come about three miles in three hours, and that it didn’t bode well for the rest of my trip home.

As the evening passed, I listened to the “Capitol Steps” on OPB. I sent text messages to my worried wife, giving her status updates every few hundred yards or so. I deeply regretted that last cup of coffee of the day. I watched my fingernails grow. I aged. And I crept imperceptibly southward.

At one point, having gotten sweaty while putting on my chains, I rolled down my window to enjoy the cool and fresh night air, and watch the snowflakes drift down. That lasted about a minute before a tanker truck came barreling the other way up Barbur, inexplicably driving down the center of the road where the snow was thickest.

*POW!* A barrage of wet slush was flung against and into my car. And against the side of my head. Road slush packed into my ear and down my collar.

So much for the cool night air.

My rate of travel didn’t substantially improve until I finally reached the top of the Barbur hill, where another Tri-Met bus sat abandoned in the roadway, resting almost perfectly perpendicular to the flow of traffic, like some guerrilla roadblock. Was this the cause of the slowdown? Probably a cause, certainly not the only one. However after passing that chokepoint I could drive at almost normal speeds, and was soon pulling into my driveway, back in Beaverton.

Elapsed time, door-to-door, nearly five hours. A commute that on a moderately bad day could take 45 minutes had taken more than six times that long. Under normal driving conditions, that’s enough time to drive to Eugene, eat dinner at my old BBQ joint, and drive back, without pushing it. What went wrong?

The Buses

Aside from the fact that one hit my car, the fact that it tried and failed to get up Broadway tied up traffic substantially, and it ended up at the side of the road, creating an obstacle to maneuver around. Another bus was stalled halfway up the Capitol Highway exit from Barbur, blocking that road completely. Then there was the one neatly creating the barricade at the top of Barbur. From talking to a few other folks, there were buses tying up traffic all over town. Someone should have gotten chains on the buses sooner, and drivers should have had the good sense not to keep going when it was becoming clear they wouldn’t be able to make their routes.

The Drivers

It’s easy to pick on Portland drivers, but this has nothing to do with driving skills, and everything to do with courtesy and patience. The traffic snarls were made infinitely worse by drivers who crowded into intersections when they had NO chance of moving out of them, blocking the way for all cross-traffic (of course, the cross-traffic would then move into the intersections in return, blocking the original flow of traffic). If you think you might not be able to get all the way across the intersection by the time the light changes, don’t enter the freaking intersection.

Then there were the drivers who were driving beyond their skill levels. If you have no traction and your wheels are spinning furiously, pull over. If you have chains, put them on. If you don’t, stay put. You don’t do anybody any good pinballing down the roadway, and it doesn’t matter that you have a big four-wheel drive truck.

As a sort of postscript, some folks have wondered aloud why I kept going instead of turning around or pulling over. In the beginning, I assumed that once I got a few more blocks that traffic would clear up, and by the time I began to realize how bad it was, going back was just as impossible as going forward. I suppose I could have stopped somewhere for a snack and to wait it out, but again, by the time I realized how bad it truly was I was locked onto Broadway/Barbur, with few opportunities to get off without risking getting stuck, and nowhere that I particularly wanted to spend time. Once I got to Burlingame, where there were things to do, traffic was moving again and there was no need. But mostly, I just wanted to get home.

I used to wonder why so many adults cursed the snow. Snow was beautiful. Snow was pure. Snow was one of the few things that can make you feel like a child again.

But I don’t think I will ever see snowflakes with the same unjaundiced view I once had, because lurking behind each fluffy crystal will be the long shadow of the commute from hell.

Related Posts

• December 7, 2009 -- Portland Police: The Problem is Perception (3)
• October 8, 2009 -- PDX in Your Pictures: Silver Dude on the Bus (1)
• September 28, 2009 -- A Green Line Redux (2)
• September 12, 2009 -- It’s Not Easy Being Green… (2)
• September 1, 2009 -- Irritation to the MAX (1)

…later…

As threatened, hereare the results (the ones that weren’t as blurry, anyway) of my own random iPhone crowd shots. Yes, I realize I’m probably one of the worst photographers around — but as I often say to my children: “You get what you get and you don’t pitch a fit.” Deal.

(Yes, that’s Stephanie Stricklen, enjoying the first caffeinated latte after Elle’s birth…!)

2:30 pm

Home now, will add some post-mortem photos & links later, along with outtakes from the Twitter feed. Thanks for following along, and best of luck to the now-uncloaked Mitch Nolan! Also – I diagnosed the source of the (mostly) MIA modem issue. Thanks for nothing, Clear…!

1:00 pm

Well, I went back to kick the modem & got stuck at the back for the big announcement: web developer & non-insider Mitch Nolan is the editor behind Oregon Media Central. Byron Beck also has the story which I’ll link to later when I get real connectivity (my iPhone app can only do so much). (now linked).

There’s a good crowd here – Steph Stricklen’s enjoying her first post-baby latte, while OMI founder Lynn Siprelle watched the torch of PDX media coverage get passed along. I took some sub-par iPhone photos I’ll share later – but I think I’m getting pulled into that dreaded mingling thing…

12:12 pm:

There are people here! There are people here! I see Jay Mackin, the host of UniBashRadio in the crowd. And a few other people, but sadly, I’ve forgotten most of their names already. Did I tell anyone I was really bad at the whole schmoozy gig before they recruited me here?

11:54 am:

Well, I’m here. I’ve coughed up the parking fee for on-street parking (despite my best intentions. I have my laptop on. Am doing the Twitter thing. But where are youuuuu? Who’s going to buy my latte, anyway…?

9:00 am:

So I guess I need to get out of my comfy pajamas and out into the muck out there ’cause I PROMISED I’d cover the Media Circus today for the anonymous guy behind Oregon Media Central. Because he’s revealing his identity today or something like that.

Where am I going?
Blitz Buzz
110 NW 10th (and Couch)
Noon to 2 pm
Google Map

(Side note: Why can’t I ever get cool graphics like that for my posts?)

Who am I seeing there?
A subset of the people who’ve already RSVP-ed here. (Shrugs) And whoever else drags themselves to the Pearl District at noon to talk to other media types and/or media sycophants, I guess.

(I’m trying to affect a jaded, hard-boiled newsman attitude here, lest I get too giddy and fangirl-ish. See, I don’t want to freak out Steph Stricklen by slobbering all over her like everyone else in PDX already does. How am I doing so far…?)

Oh, yeah. I’ll be lowering myself to do that new-fangled Twitter thing as well. Watch for most of the action from the @OurPDXLive account using the hashtag #pdxmc. (You’re not following it already? Follow it already…)

Now, do I want to update in reverse chronological order (newer stuff on the top), or force you all to open a new page and scroll down, down, down? Decisions, decisions…

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While going about my day recently, I came across something so …just…well frankly, the only word for it is Portlandy.

On one hand, this certainly is an excellent way to get people to notice you and pay attention. And as a method of drumming up the 1000 signatures and 5$ contributions in order to get public funding, I suppose it’s as good a method as any. But please, Mr. Burton, we need a bit more content once you get on the ballot. Substance and honesty. That’s what Portland needs right now.

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• No Related Post

Governer Kulongoski decides to invite several Portland-area police departments to a friendly competition. The Beaverton Police Department, the Gresham Police Department, and the Portland Police Department all take part.

A jackrabbit is marked with blue dye, then released into Forest Park. Each of the Police Departments in turn is given a chance to locate and capture the rabbit.

First, the Gresham PD goes in.
They place animal informants throughout the Park.
They question all plant and mineral witnesses.
After weeks of extensive investigation, they conclude that rabbits do not exist.

Then, the Beaverton PD goes in.
They set up dozens of infrared surveillance cameras, each equipped with a GPS receiver and connected to the Internet by satellite.
Undercover officers in bear suits roam the woods.
After two weeks with no leads they call a press conference to announce that the rabbit has definitely left the area, and is probably now in California using an assumed name.

Finally, the Portland Police Department goes in.
They come out two hours later with a badly beaten raccoon.
The raccoon is yelling: “Okay! Okay! I’m a rabbit! I’m a rabbit!”

On November 14, Portland Officer Aaron Dauchy confronted a 12-year-old girl on a MAX platform for violating a Trimet “exclusion”. She and Dauchy began to scuffle. At this point Portland Officer Chris Humphreys discharged a shotgun loaded with a nonlethal “beanbag” round point-blank into the thigh of the girl.

Here’s the TriMet video that captured the incident.

As a result, Humphreys was placed on administrative leave by Police Commissioner Dan Saltzman and Police Chief Rosie Sizer. In response, hundreds of Portland police officers marched through downtown in support of Officer Humphreys. Twelve-year veteran Officer Peter Taylor penned a passionate explanation of why he, personally, felt he had to take part in the march.

The Portland Police Association conducted a “no-confidence” vote on Saltzman and Sizer, taking the position that Officer Humphreys “had acted as he was trained to act and did everything to minimize injury to the 12-year-old girl” and that “her actions is what led to the use of force against her”.

Under pressure from the union, Officer Humphreys was reinstated to desk duty, and in return the union is withholding the results of the no-confidence vote. The net result is an increased erosion in the relationship between the Portland Police Department and the public that they are sworn to protect.

Let’s put this incident into some sort of context.

The 12-year-old on the platform was under TriMet exclusion for the prior theft of a purse. According to TriMet Code Chapter 28, the District may exclude an individual from all or any part of the District Transit System for a provision of the TriMet code, or a violation of any criminal law of the State of Oregon while on the District Transit System, for up to six months. There are certain exceptions, but they aren’t relevant here.

Under “Enforcement” (section 28.20), the Code states that “all peace officers of the State of Oregon are authorized to issue citations, as provided by Oregon law, to any person who violates any provision of TMC Chapter 28″. So, the young lady was under an exclusion, and therefore could be cited for being at a MAX platform.

When confronted, she struggled. This was a bad decision, and certainly not her first. But the response that followed was entirely out of proportion for the situation. Much has been made of her height and weight, but even if she is the size of some adults, her size is not the issue. She was twelve. Children at 12 may not make rational choices. Applying an adult standard of behavior to a 12-year-old is inappropriate.

However, even if she were an adult, getting shot by a shotgun at close range was not justified by the seriousness of the situation. She was unarmed, not a threat to anyone, and guilty only of violating exclusion.

The seductive trap of less-than-lethal (LTL) weapons is the mistaken belief that they are “safe”, coupled with the realization that hitting a suspect with a taser or a beanbag round is a lot faster and easier than either arguing or grappling with them. But let’s get one thing straight, “non-lethal” does not mean harmless. In fact, experts refer to beanbag rounds, baton rounds and the like as “less-than-lethal”, or LTL. LTL ammo can break bones, rupture organs, destroy eyes, and even kill.

Furthermore, beanbag rounds are more traditionally used for stand-off applications such as riot control, and not close-range confrontations. Optimal range for use of a beanbag round is between 21 and 50 feet, according to the Police Assessment Resource Center, and when fired at less than 10 feet beanbag rounds can cause death or serious injury.

So, to put this in plain English, a 12-year-old girl was in a position to get a citation, and when she resisted she was shot, point-blank, by a 12-gauge shotgun firing 1.4 ounces of lead shot encased in a fabric sack.

This represents a dangerous use of force. And what is even more troubling, the use of excessive force appears to be becoming more and more common with the Portland Police Department. To wit, it’s beginning to look like the most serious crime you can commit in Portland is resisting arrest.

In 2003, not too long after I moved to Portland, 21-year-old African-American Kendra James was shot to death by Portland Police Officer Scott McCollister during a traffic stop. Ms. James, who had a warrant out for her arrest, had been riding in the back seat of the car. After the driver had been removed, Officers attempted to arrest Ms. James. Unexpectedly, she jumped from the back seat into the front seat of the car, started it, and tried to drive away. Indicating that he believed his life to be in danger, Officer McCollister fired his weapon, killing Kendra James.

In 2006, a homeless schizophrenic named James Chasse was “subdued” by Portland and Multnomah County police officers, resulting in 16 broken ribs, a broken shoulder, a broken sternum, and massive internal injuries. He died in custody. Mr. Chasse was guilty of public urination, and running from police.

My interest in the Portland bicycling community has made me aware of a few other incidents, where bicyclists have been chased, grabbed by the hair, handcuffed and arrested, and even tackled, pushed off their bike, and tasered repeatedly. Their crimes? Riding at night without a light, and not immediately stopping when shouted at. Even in the dark, when the arresting officers couldn’t remember if they properly identified themselves.

In the immortal words of Chris Rock, “If the police have to come and get you, they’re bringing an ass-kicking with them.”

I’m concerned. When I was a kid, I was taught that if I had a problem, if I was lost, if I was scared, I should find a policeman. That if someone was wearing a police uniform, I could trust them. Now I’m becoming afraid to give my own children the same advice. The Portland Police are in danger of being uniformly perceived as abusive, of using excessive force, and of being unable to police themselves.

The Portland Police department has many, many fine officers, who go to work every day under threat of violence, and spend their shifts dealing with the worst that humanity can offer. But those fine officers do themselves, and their city, a grave disservice when they fail to recognize excess within their own ranks, and fail to condemn it without equivocation.

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