“We needed to create a stir to get some change, to get them [city council] to fund us back up. And I mean, that’s the honest truth. I know, that could make things more dangerous. I don’t know. But at the same time, we needed some change.”
It was so obvious at the time and so transparent that it’s truly shocking how well it worked.
So now we’re stuck with this terrible city council that is actively sabotaging the city’s efforts on homelessness and mental health until 2024.
People have been hurt because of this stunt. This sucks.
The Portland police budget, consistently, has been around 1/4 of a billion dollars a year. Even Hardesty’s “cut” wasn’t a reduction in the budget, it was a reduction in the increase for the NEXT budget.
So the question we ALL need to ask is if they aren’t doing traffic enforcement, they aren’t doing gang or gun enforcement, they definitely aren’t doing drug enforcement, the bike theft taskforce is disbanded, and they aren’t responding to 911 calls, what exactly ARE they doing with 1/4 billion a year?
Well, they have a podcast for one.
What??? Holy shit.
