There’s no doubt that the past year and a half has been a challenging time. Countless families around the world have either fought off illness or had relatives succumb to the deadly COVID virus. Health care professionals like nurses have...
6 October 2021
WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR BELOVED OREGON?
“THERE’S A TRICKY BALANCE BETWEEN WHAT IS GOOD FOR THE OVERALL PUBLIC HEALTH OF SOCIETY VERSUS AN AUTHORITARIAN GOVERNMENT TO IMPOSE ITS WILL ON ALL OF US.” For many of us, it seems like the last year and a half...
22 September 2021
Local Control and the Consent of the Governed
The last year and a half since the COVID-19 pandemic first hit have taught us a lot about ourselves, each other and the true intentions of many people entrusted with leadership positions. Elected officials throughout Oregon and the United States...
8 September 2021
Finding the Right Balance
Having completely failed to address the homeless crisis in any meaningful way, Portland politicians have concocted another way of dealing with it. This mostly involves passing legislation telling every other city throughout Oregon to take care of the problem while...
18 August 2021
Blindsides, Broken Promises and Burning Bridges
Anyone who is even the least bit familiar with my public political stances knows that I’ve traditionally had a tough time trusting Metro and its officials. This position comes from years of watching this agency chronically waste tax dollars and...
4 August 2021
Another Attack on Rural Oregon
One of the biggest problems we face in Oregon is the growing divide between those in the urban and rural areas. And despite all that they might have in common, public policy issues often come up that remind them that...
13 July 2021
What We’re Working Toward
In order to truly thrive, an organization needs to have clearly defined goals and objectives in place. Those goals should be agreed upon by the organization’s leaders and employees and be understood by all involved, for the sake of achieving...
8 July 2021
Let’s Salvage and Manage What Remains
Summer is now officially underway. We can all recall last summer, when catastrophic wildfires touched and torched nearly every corner of Oregon. Devastation was literally everywhere, and much of it remains to this very day. The small town of Gates,...
23 June 2021
Fighting for Your Vacation Rental Rights
Thanks to modern technology, property owners are able to connect to would-be visitors to rent out unused rooms in their houses. It’s proving to be a win-win for those property owners and their guests alike. However, these kinds of voluntary,...
9 June 2021
Promises Made, Promises Kept
This time last year, I was elected chair of the Clackamas County Board of Commissioners outright in the May 2020 primary election. I accomplished this by winning over 50 percent of the vote, meaning that a runoff in the November...