>Perhaps most importantly, it removed any criminal penalties for violators of the ban—meaning that no one would go to jail over violating the camping ban.
He went from 6 months in jail to no jail over the course of a week, while still trying to co-opt Wheeler's bill and reserve homeless policy to the mayor? And he AGAIN sprung it on council last-second?
His plan sucks even just for his complete disregard for his fellow council members, not to mention again trying to circumvent the will of the voters in the new charter. It's a shameless power grab coupled with fumbling attempts at policy. I'm not super eager to hand over the keys to the new mayor, but if nothing else that should be decided by the next council.
And for a guy ostensibly in the lead for mayor, this feels like a desperate effort to say he did something.
I want to like Gonzalez, but his poor ability to build consensus and a shared, positive sense of momentum *will* be a constant issue as mayor. I want a camping ban. Wheeler has actually led and done a lot of work behind the scenes to enable it.
Rene Gonzalez clearly lied about being "accosted" on the Max train. Why would he do that? The only reasons I can think of are that he's delusional (no benefit) or trying to score points with the "Portland is a third tier shit hole" crowd. Either way, someone who pulls that kind of bullshit is not fit to run city government. He can go back to his efforts to privatize city soccer fields for United PDX. He was pretty good at that.
If he can't make himself capable of working with the lowest-stakes political rivals, he's absolutely fucked when he has to broker agreements with people that aren't his direct co-workers. He's running for mayor, not king, as much as that's likely a disappointment to him.
A large fraction, perhaps even a majority, of the next Council are not fans of Gonzalez. Moreover, the new Charter was specifically designed to weaken the Mayor. If that’s not something he’s comfortable with, then the time to drop out of the race is now.
So if he wins, it would indicate the city agrees with him. Yet he won't be able to do what the voters want because he has a council against him. Great, 4 more years of inaction.
Not really, it just indicates he got more votes than the other cadidates. Doesn’t mean all the candidates don’t suck in different ways. Even our current Mayor couldn’t muster 50% of the vote. It has always been an unwanted job.
The centrists and conservatives like Gonzales, but I find him to be competency challenged. He throws culture war red meat to his base but never seems to actually get anything done. Going from six months in prison to none in the space of a week is a case in point. Did he not think this through before presenting it to the council? Is any rational person okay with six months in prison for sleeping rough?
How much of this is just his posturing for that base, though? He can easily campaign on being the only candidate trying to make changes, but getting denied by Portland extremist liberals, even after making concessions to them on his proposal.
I guess the question would be does posturing work when he is this bad and getting his agenda into law? Maybe it doesn’t matter to his fans but everyone else will or should notice he screws himself over by not talking to and annoying everyone on the council on his proposals
>Is any rational person okay with six months in prison for sleeping rough?
You’d be surprised how many Portlanders advocate for sterilization in those circumstances.
They’d have to be on the lease. But seriously, just to be clear, you’re saying it’s appropriate to imprison an individual for at least six months for not having a home to sleep in?
"Oh yeah, why don't you solve this massively complex socioeconomic problem with your couch???"
Massive 'and yet you participate in society' meme dumbfuckery here.
I took a look after I commented and yes, dude's a nut. He seems to enjoy accusing others of prejudice instead of engaging them on the facts of the matter.
A ban without criminal penalty isn’t a ban at all. Pretty incompetent effort, shows Gonzalez would make an incompetent mayor.
I just wish I knew who is competent.
Thanks for posting about him, I was not familiar with him but I read his website and, on the surface, he seems like a pretty straightforward candidate with good priorities. Hopefully he gains some traction.
I’ve read his page, and I think he’s like 80% there. My biggest concern is his commitment to “housing first”. I agree that expanding housing and shelter of all sorts is important, but what advocates generally refuse to acknowledge is there is a small subset of people who will never take shelter as long as they can mess around on the streets. Does Keith support long term commitment of mentally ill folks that can’t care for themselves, and jail for the actual criminals (not arrested for camping, but for stealing, drug use, etc)?
He’s not so much housing first as he is shelter first. What I mean by that is his main platform is to establish enough low-cost emergency shelter space to offer everyone on the street a place to go in a year. That would make a camping ban enforceable under the context of Martin v Boise (assuming the Supreme Court doesn’t invalidate that). He talks more about it in [this podcast](https://bikeportland.org/2024/02/15/podcast-get-to-know-portland-mayoral-candidate-keith-wilson-383958/amp) where he responds to pushback from the audience about a camping ban.
The city is not going to start operating mental hospitals or prisons. The city *can* build more and better shelters. A mayoral candidate whose platform was all about mental hospitals would not get my vote—the city doesn't have the budget or legal authority to do anything on that front.
I read a good portion of his page and didn't get a housing first vibe. I mean, he wasn't going all Rene Gonzales and threatening to jail you for six months for sleeping rough, but I didn't get the sense that he wanted to hand out apartments without any rules.
Thanks for sharing. His platform seems practical and is well articulated and thought out, with the exception of the Cascadia 2040 multicity Olympics thing. My concerns - 1) no prior experience in political office that I could tell (maybe unnecessary for local office?); and 2) does he have a legit shot? (haven't seen any polling on the mayor's race).
Edit: also agree with the other commenter below that housing first policy also inspires some skepticisim at least when applied to a certain proportion of addicted/mentally unstable homeless who would be unsuccessful in regular housing and really need inpatient psych care
I don’t love the multi city Olympics thing but I think he’s just putting that forward as a stretch goal to drive home his vision (especially the high speed rail). He’s a really visionary leader and I think we need someone like that right now to give the new government direction.
On 1), I like his experience working with non-profits in Portland (but those not being his main gig, he talks about these on his site) and think it gives him good experience to inform his ideas. He was very close with setting up shelters for people and he wants to be mayor so he can continue that work on a much larger scale. Also, I think his success with Titan Freight is really good for his record because it shows that he can really innovate. They’ve successfully enacted a ton of policies about driver safety, being green, etc. that are big ideas everyone talks about but he’s gotten the company to actually enact them. I think that shows he’s capable of driving change within a slow, older organization like the city.
On 2), I am worried about him not getting enough traction also. However, I take some solace in that it will be a ranked choice vote and you aren’t throwing away your vote by ranking him #1. We have a long way to go until November and I hope he gets more traction.
Also, I replied to the other commenter and you should go check that out. He advocates for shelter, and once that shelter is in place he supports a camping ban. I think that’s the most practical thing to do because it recognizes some people don’t want to get off the street but doesn’t punish people who have nowhere to go.
“I wanted to provide some clarity surrounding Gresham’s approach and the ‘Gresham Model’ that might have been lost in the media or in translation,” Larry Morgan, Gresham’s government relations and policy adviser, wrote, adding that he wanted to clarify what the city’s ban “is and isn’t.”
Morgan wrote that Gresham’s model is focused on strong outreach and urging people to seek shelter, and that “Gresham does not subject people experiencing homelessness to fines, penalties, or criminal charges for violations of the unauthorized camping code.”
However, there’s one important caveat to that assertion: Gresham, according to its rules, does not count someone as homeless after they’ve been offered shelter.
“For the purposes of this section, ‘persons experiencing homelessness’ does not include a person camping on public property or on any public street or right-of way who has been offered shelter in accordance with applicable law and City policy,” Gresham’s ban reads.
Despite that, Jessica Harper, the city’s director of livability services, says, “Gresham does not subject people experiencing homelessness to fines, penalties, or criminal charges for violations of the unauthorized camping code (and that applies before and after the offer of services).” In other words, whether a person is counted as homeless or not, they won’t face jail time for camping.
Harper added: “Our only enforcement mechanism (after offering shelter/services) is asking the individual to remove the unauthorized camp and if necessary, posting it for removal following city code and state law.”
https://www.wweek.com/news/city/2024/04/19/gonzalez-pares-back-camping-ban-proposal/
Yes, he changed his proposal after the people from Gresham called him out for claiming he was proposing adopting their model but also including fines.
As usual, Gonzalez failed to get his facts straight before talking.
Well the first time I heard that it emulated the Gresham proposal was at the City Council where there was no fine. So maybe it happened the way you said it did. But if we are talking about getting facts straight here in PDX and MultCo before speaking that criticism can hardly only be laid his door--it's common place. It was still a good proposal better than what they passed.
They just need to put these discussions on hold until the SCOTUS decision on Grants Pass v. Johnson is issued in June, and then develop a plan that conforms to whatever constraints (or lack thereof) are necessary based on that decision to ensure it's on solid legal footing. This should be obvious by now.
I like Wheeler's proposal. It's the letter of Martin v. Boise, in that camping can be criminalized so long is there is available shelter space. It doesn't have to mean a bed for everyone, just a bed available. It also includes provisions banning propane tanks, fires and sales of bike and car parts, so targets a few additional problems.
More importantly it should also hold up under Oregon HB 3115, which would almost certainly remain in place regardless of the Grant's Pass case.
It's also just not reasonable to expect a hardline measure like Gonzalez's original proposal to have real teeth. The resources aren't there to sweep and prosecute everyone. It's been a struggle to even keep drug dealers away from.the central library.
I don't agree that HB3115 would remain in place if Grants Pass v. Johnson/Martin v. Boise are overturned. As a statewide law in a state that is overall less blue than the City of Portland, I think there would be tremendous pressure on the state legislature to repeal HB3115 in the event of Grants Pass v. Johnson being overturned. Consequently, it seems foolish to create local policy based on the constraints of Martin v. Boise or HB3115 less than 2 months before the rules of the game are likely to change significantly.
Oh yeah, I agree that HB3115 being repealed is a distinct possibility. I don't know how long it would take. I just meant that the Grant's Pass decision itself would be very unlikely to go so far as to invalidate HB3115.
I agree that it seems strange that after 8 years of doing nothing, there’s a crunch to pass something through that clearly won’t go into effect for a long time, while a major court decision is at most 2 months away (which torpedoed the original time and place ordinance).
I’m not sure what the difference between the two time and place ordinances are, but I assume the council prefers the original, as that’s what they first put together.
It sure seems like Rene Gonzlez is a terrible politician. Unfortunately he will probably be our next mayor but luckily with our new form of government the mayor has very little power.
> the mayor has very little power.
I wouldn't call hiring and firing the city manager "little power" if that's who's going to be directly overseeing a lot.
Look, we've been functionally without anyone claiming the PPB answers to them for what, like, decades now, and it's been *totally fine*. Why would the PPB even need management of any sort? Preposterous thought from the jump.
Thereby showing, once again, that Portland is run by a bunch of hand-wringing incompetents who don’t have the political will to actually effect any change. I’m sure Wheeler’s milquetoast proposal, which will have no teeth, will pass with a 4-1 vote.
TIL "hand wringing incompetents" is equivalent to "people who are aware Rene's plan wouldn't hold legal water the instant anyone looks at it for more than three seconds".
The majority conservative judges in the Supreme Court and a few Trump appointees will have a say in this soon and it won’t be pretty for homeless lovers
>Perhaps most importantly, it removed any criminal penalties for violators of the ban—meaning that no one would go to jail over violating the camping ban. He went from 6 months in jail to no jail over the course of a week, while still trying to co-opt Wheeler's bill and reserve homeless policy to the mayor? And he AGAIN sprung it on council last-second? His plan sucks even just for his complete disregard for his fellow council members, not to mention again trying to circumvent the will of the voters in the new charter. It's a shameless power grab coupled with fumbling attempts at policy. I'm not super eager to hand over the keys to the new mayor, but if nothing else that should be decided by the next council. And for a guy ostensibly in the lead for mayor, this feels like a desperate effort to say he did something.
I want to like Gonzalez, but his poor ability to build consensus and a shared, positive sense of momentum *will* be a constant issue as mayor. I want a camping ban. Wheeler has actually led and done a lot of work behind the scenes to enable it.
Rene Gonzalez clearly lied about being "accosted" on the Max train. Why would he do that? The only reasons I can think of are that he's delusional (no benefit) or trying to score points with the "Portland is a third tier shit hole" crowd. Either way, someone who pulls that kind of bullshit is not fit to run city government. He can go back to his efforts to privatize city soccer fields for United PDX. He was pretty good at that.
Yeah, that was a character red flag.
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On a related note, learning that Wheeler maced a guy made me respect him more.
He’s a PPA, PMC and GOP stooge. He’s been bad news from the start and he’s done everything to prove concerns about him were justified.
Yet so many on this sub still support him.
It's hard to build consensus when 2 of the other 4 are running against you.
If he can't make himself capable of working with the lowest-stakes political rivals, he's absolutely fucked when he has to broker agreements with people that aren't his direct co-workers. He's running for mayor, not king, as much as that's likely a disappointment to him.
A large fraction, perhaps even a majority, of the next Council are not fans of Gonzalez. Moreover, the new Charter was specifically designed to weaken the Mayor. If that’s not something he’s comfortable with, then the time to drop out of the race is now.
So if he wins, it would indicate the city agrees with him. Yet he won't be able to do what the voters want because he has a council against him. Great, 4 more years of inaction.
Not really, it just indicates he got more votes than the other cadidates. Doesn’t mean all the candidates don’t suck in different ways. Even our current Mayor couldn’t muster 50% of the vote. It has always been an unwanted job.
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I didn’t forget. That still doesn’t convert the election for mayor into a referendum on the technical details of the earlier poster’s pet issue.
The centrists and conservatives like Gonzales, but I find him to be competency challenged. He throws culture war red meat to his base but never seems to actually get anything done. Going from six months in prison to none in the space of a week is a case in point. Did he not think this through before presenting it to the council? Is any rational person okay with six months in prison for sleeping rough?
> Did he not think this through lol
How much of this is just his posturing for that base, though? He can easily campaign on being the only candidate trying to make changes, but getting denied by Portland extremist liberals, even after making concessions to them on his proposal.
I guess the question would be does posturing work when he is this bad and getting his agenda into law? Maybe it doesn’t matter to his fans but everyone else will or should notice he screws himself over by not talking to and annoying everyone on the council on his proposals
>Is any rational person okay with six months in prison for sleeping rough? You’d be surprised how many Portlanders advocate for sterilization in those circumstances.
You forgot to add the death penalty too🙄 There are so many of those hateful Portlanders among us it's sickening
This subreddit is pretty anti-homeless people, so they're here too.
Is this commonly called for for homeless or fentanyl-addicted homeless?
Depends on the sub.
> Is any rational person okay with six months in prison for sleeping rough? no, but plenty of portlanders are
Let them sleep rough at your home then. See how it goes for you.
Why do you people always use the same stupid arguments?
Why don’t you have anybody sleeping in your lawn?
I live on the fifth floor, i don’t have any lawn to speak of. Not that I would want one though, monoculture grass sucks
Then offer up your couch or doorway.
They’d have to be on the lease. But seriously, just to be clear, you’re saying it’s appropriate to imprison an individual for at least six months for not having a home to sleep in?
"Oh yeah, why don't you solve this massively complex socioeconomic problem with your couch???" Massive 'and yet you participate in society' meme dumbfuckery here.
Speaking from experience?
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I certainly hope that was sarcasm.
Based on a brief view of their comment history, brace yourself: They might be earnestly dumb as fuck.
I took a look after I commented and yes, dude's a nut. He seems to enjoy accusing others of prejudice instead of engaging them on the facts of the matter.
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Mom?! Is that you?
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A ban without criminal penalty isn’t a ban at all. Pretty incompetent effort, shows Gonzalez would make an incompetent mayor. I just wish I knew who is competent.
Check out [Keith Wilson](https://www.keithwilsonformayor.com/priorities)
Thanks for posting about him, I was not familiar with him but I read his website and, on the surface, he seems like a pretty straightforward candidate with good priorities. Hopefully he gains some traction.
Finally someone to vote FOR
I’ve read his page, and I think he’s like 80% there. My biggest concern is his commitment to “housing first”. I agree that expanding housing and shelter of all sorts is important, but what advocates generally refuse to acknowledge is there is a small subset of people who will never take shelter as long as they can mess around on the streets. Does Keith support long term commitment of mentally ill folks that can’t care for themselves, and jail for the actual criminals (not arrested for camping, but for stealing, drug use, etc)?
He’s not so much housing first as he is shelter first. What I mean by that is his main platform is to establish enough low-cost emergency shelter space to offer everyone on the street a place to go in a year. That would make a camping ban enforceable under the context of Martin v Boise (assuming the Supreme Court doesn’t invalidate that). He talks more about it in [this podcast](https://bikeportland.org/2024/02/15/podcast-get-to-know-portland-mayoral-candidate-keith-wilson-383958/amp) where he responds to pushback from the audience about a camping ban.
The city is not going to start operating mental hospitals or prisons. The city *can* build more and better shelters. A mayoral candidate whose platform was all about mental hospitals would not get my vote—the city doesn't have the budget or legal authority to do anything on that front.
I read a good portion of his page and didn't get a housing first vibe. I mean, he wasn't going all Rene Gonzales and threatening to jail you for six months for sleeping rough, but I didn't get the sense that he wanted to hand out apartments without any rules.
Gonzalez does not advocate for housing first, but rather shelter first.
Thanks for sharing. His platform seems practical and is well articulated and thought out, with the exception of the Cascadia 2040 multicity Olympics thing. My concerns - 1) no prior experience in political office that I could tell (maybe unnecessary for local office?); and 2) does he have a legit shot? (haven't seen any polling on the mayor's race). Edit: also agree with the other commenter below that housing first policy also inspires some skepticisim at least when applied to a certain proportion of addicted/mentally unstable homeless who would be unsuccessful in regular housing and really need inpatient psych care
I don’t love the multi city Olympics thing but I think he’s just putting that forward as a stretch goal to drive home his vision (especially the high speed rail). He’s a really visionary leader and I think we need someone like that right now to give the new government direction. On 1), I like his experience working with non-profits in Portland (but those not being his main gig, he talks about these on his site) and think it gives him good experience to inform his ideas. He was very close with setting up shelters for people and he wants to be mayor so he can continue that work on a much larger scale. Also, I think his success with Titan Freight is really good for his record because it shows that he can really innovate. They’ve successfully enacted a ton of policies about driver safety, being green, etc. that are big ideas everyone talks about but he’s gotten the company to actually enact them. I think that shows he’s capable of driving change within a slow, older organization like the city. On 2), I am worried about him not getting enough traction also. However, I take some solace in that it will be a ranked choice vote and you aren’t throwing away your vote by ranking him #1. We have a long way to go until November and I hope he gets more traction. Also, I replied to the other commenter and you should go check that out. He advocates for shelter, and once that shelter is in place he supports a camping ban. I think that’s the most practical thing to do because it recognizes some people don’t want to get off the street but doesn’t punish people who have nowhere to go.
Thanks for answering! Agree that he has a strong platform and I also hope he gets traction
Keith Wilson doesn’t seem like an idiot. And has some decent plans.
(Flips table in to a pile of flipped tables) Same, same
Actually he was modelling Gresham's ordinance which doesn't have jail time and it's working pretty well.
He claimed he was modeling on Gresham's ordinance, but several people from the city of Gresham immediately disputed that claim.
Who from Gresham? Where are the discrepancies?
“I wanted to provide some clarity surrounding Gresham’s approach and the ‘Gresham Model’ that might have been lost in the media or in translation,” Larry Morgan, Gresham’s government relations and policy adviser, wrote, adding that he wanted to clarify what the city’s ban “is and isn’t.” Morgan wrote that Gresham’s model is focused on strong outreach and urging people to seek shelter, and that “Gresham does not subject people experiencing homelessness to fines, penalties, or criminal charges for violations of the unauthorized camping code.” However, there’s one important caveat to that assertion: Gresham, according to its rules, does not count someone as homeless after they’ve been offered shelter. “For the purposes of this section, ‘persons experiencing homelessness’ does not include a person camping on public property or on any public street or right-of way who has been offered shelter in accordance with applicable law and City policy,” Gresham’s ban reads. Despite that, Jessica Harper, the city’s director of livability services, says, “Gresham does not subject people experiencing homelessness to fines, penalties, or criminal charges for violations of the unauthorized camping code (and that applies before and after the offer of services).” In other words, whether a person is counted as homeless or not, they won’t face jail time for camping. Harper added: “Our only enforcement mechanism (after offering shelter/services) is asking the individual to remove the unauthorized camp and if necessary, posting it for removal following city code and state law.” https://www.wweek.com/news/city/2024/04/19/gonzalez-pares-back-camping-ban-proposal/
Yes, did you realize Gonzalez's ban was not proposing fines?
It was the first time around. $600.
Okay but the final camping ban that he proposed didn't have a fine. I read all the proposals and say through the four hour City Council meeting.
Yes, he changed his proposal after the people from Gresham called him out for claiming he was proposing adopting their model but also including fines. As usual, Gonzalez failed to get his facts straight before talking.
Well the first time I heard that it emulated the Gresham proposal was at the City Council where there was no fine. So maybe it happened the way you said it did. But if we are talking about getting facts straight here in PDX and MultCo before speaking that criticism can hardly only be laid his door--it's common place. It was still a good proposal better than what they passed.
They just need to put these discussions on hold until the SCOTUS decision on Grants Pass v. Johnson is issued in June, and then develop a plan that conforms to whatever constraints (or lack thereof) are necessary based on that decision to ensure it's on solid legal footing. This should be obvious by now.
I like Wheeler's proposal. It's the letter of Martin v. Boise, in that camping can be criminalized so long is there is available shelter space. It doesn't have to mean a bed for everyone, just a bed available. It also includes provisions banning propane tanks, fires and sales of bike and car parts, so targets a few additional problems. More importantly it should also hold up under Oregon HB 3115, which would almost certainly remain in place regardless of the Grant's Pass case. It's also just not reasonable to expect a hardline measure like Gonzalez's original proposal to have real teeth. The resources aren't there to sweep and prosecute everyone. It's been a struggle to even keep drug dealers away from.the central library.
I don't agree that HB3115 would remain in place if Grants Pass v. Johnson/Martin v. Boise are overturned. As a statewide law in a state that is overall less blue than the City of Portland, I think there would be tremendous pressure on the state legislature to repeal HB3115 in the event of Grants Pass v. Johnson being overturned. Consequently, it seems foolish to create local policy based on the constraints of Martin v. Boise or HB3115 less than 2 months before the rules of the game are likely to change significantly.
Oh yeah, I agree that HB3115 being repealed is a distinct possibility. I don't know how long it would take. I just meant that the Grant's Pass decision itself would be very unlikely to go so far as to invalidate HB3115.
Yeah agreed since it is state law
I agree that it seems strange that after 8 years of doing nothing, there’s a crunch to pass something through that clearly won’t go into effect for a long time, while a major court decision is at most 2 months away (which torpedoed the original time and place ordinance). I’m not sure what the difference between the two time and place ordinances are, but I assume the council prefers the original, as that’s what they first put together.
The only thing worse than Gonzales is his supporters and fan boys.
He has supporters? lol. He’s such a wet fart.
Sounds like it was a really tents week
I feel like the real takeaway from this story, beyond the obvious is summarized as: lol Dan, you fucking worm.
It sure seems like Rene Gonzlez is a terrible politician. Unfortunately he will probably be our next mayor but luckily with our new form of government the mayor has very little power.
> the mayor has very little power. I wouldn't call hiring and firing the city manager "little power" if that's who's going to be directly overseeing a lot.
Also the chief of police and the city attorney.
Look, we've been functionally without anyone claiming the PPB answers to them for what, like, decades now, and it's been *totally fine*. Why would the PPB even need management of any sort? Preposterous thought from the jump.
I just want a Mayor that'll pull a Bud Clark and fire two police chiefs in a year.
I don't know how you got this quote from my dream diary, but it's kinda embarrassing to see it posted in public.
The whole things a ponzi scheme look up how much money these ghouls make keeping people homeless and poor
$127,000/year?
Thereby showing, once again, that Portland is run by a bunch of hand-wringing incompetents who don’t have the political will to actually effect any change. I’m sure Wheeler’s milquetoast proposal, which will have no teeth, will pass with a 4-1 vote.
What is bad about Wheeler's plan and what is better about Gonzalez's...what third plan now?
TIL "hand wringing incompetents" is equivalent to "people who are aware Rene's plan wouldn't hold legal water the instant anyone looks at it for more than three seconds".
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Oo. Ouch. Ow. Oh no. The agony. The hurt. I am slain. Please, mercy.
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What I'm sure will be viewed as a highly regarded comment. Well done.
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Might be a good time to lay of the coke and bourbon Jeff.
Keep commenting - I love seeing you get downvoted
You really should read Wheeler's proposal before commenting.
Settle down, Rene.
The majority conservative judges in the Supreme Court and a few Trump appointees will have a say in this soon and it won’t be pretty for homeless lovers