Sam Adams’s Budget Tells the Story of Dan Salzman’s Ineffectiveness, Randy Leonard’s Profligate Spending, And Political Gotcha…

May 8, 2010

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The questions we need to ask about this boring “process” story:
Could someone explain to me why “scholarship” money is included in the budget of the City of Portland? The city’s job is not education. We actually have people for that.
Our money is not your private playground, Sam Adams. We don’t have money for this. 
And what about this $267,000.00 for the East County plan. We looked it up. It looks like a slush fund for replication of neighborhood association stuff. There’s no there there.
Why does Adams supposedly “lay off” 100 workers but dole out hundreds of thousands of dollars to programs the city has no business doing?
Why does BDS, Randy Leonard’s bureau, lay off employees but get a new $15,000,000.00 computer system? 
Why does Sam claim to “save” money on the big pipe project and yet RAISE water fees? 
Why does Randy Leonard call the shots at the cop shop on the mounted patrol?
I talked to Matt Davis at the Smirkery on the air yesterday about the budget and he said this budget was Randy’s and Sam’s and everybody else got the shaft. It also tells the story, he generally said, of Saltzman’s ineffectiveness at the city exemplified by Randy and Sam’s not having endorsed him and making his budget priorities for  him.
My understanding is that Dan Saltzman got a huge endorsement from a big shot Portlander in exchange for the promise of keeping the mounted patrol. Saltzman couldn’t determine his spending priorities in his own bureau and couldn’t keep the promise. Someone else is making decisions at the cop shop.
So Sam and Randy: The cop shop is yours. We’ll see fit to blame you to the next time things go fubar. After all, Saltzman’s ineffectiveness and ethical void tell the story of why he needs to go. Now that it’s crystal clear who’s running the police bureau, we’ll just bypass Dan and go straight to you two.

Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com