Another Atkinson Sighting

I was in Corvallis earlier tonight to pitch the Republican Meetups as a way to help get Republicans elected in Oregon, and got to catch most of Jason Atkinson's speech to the Benton County Republican Central Committee.

Atkinson was exceptionally good. His time on the stump has polished him. He related many of the same anecdotes I've heard before, but they seemed fresh. His energy was good, slightly subdued and statesmanlike. His trademark good humor was in evidence. And he didn't shy away from any hard questions, including of course one on immigration.

The ORGOP is lucky to be able to field candidates of this caliber. With some professional coaching, I think he'd be even better.

Catch all three GOP candidates at the City Club of Portland on 5/14/06 - just $5 general admission.

Tom In the News

Jerry Boone may not absolutely agree with me on all points, but he finds me interesting - or at least interesting enough to write about. Thanks, Jerry!

Grandiose rail schemes do little to reduce congestion

Seattle is going rail-crazy. Look familiar to anyone in Portland?

Key quotes:

If initial goals are not met, the board sets new goals at a fraction of the level once promised. Current performance then is compared with revised goals set so low that nearly any improvement is cause for celebration.

and:

At present, the taxpayer subsidy for each round trip on the Everett-to-Seattle rail commuter line is about $547! Not included is the $6 fare ($3 each way). The $547 subsidy is 32 times more than the round-trip taxpayer subsidy for Sound Transit's regional express buses.

Amazing.

Open Space... or Public Safety?

As Metro considers whether to ask area voters for a bond to purchase open space, voters are increasingly saying "no" to new taxes.

I believe that the similar 1995 bond was, among other things, proof that voters are willing to pay for what they want. The anti-Measure 37 crowd has long insisted that government has to confiscate land (through uncompensated regulatory takings) rather than pay for what it takes.

One reasonable concern - brought up in the Oregonian article - is that voters do have an upper limit for how much they're willing to pay, and sometimes the last person to ask for money gets told "no" regardless of how worthy the purpose may be.

Will voters pay for open space, only to say "no" to other demands like public safety or local school options? Will they see this as a chance to buy open space now before the price goes up? Or will public safety get a "yes" and open space a "no"?

I have no crystal ball on this. I'm expecting the open space bond to pass. But I expected the Washington County public safety levy to pass in 2004, and it didn't.

I think the wisest course of action includes these steps: (1) trust the voters and abide by their wishes, (2) encourage economic growth that grows the pie and expands the tax base, so we'll have the money to pay for government services, and (3) relentlessly look for ways to save money and do more with less in delivering government services. Indianapolis managed to increase services for years while cutting taxes, and ended up with more cash at the end than at the beginning.

Post Dorchester

Attended my first Dorchester - I didn't expect there were so many reasonable Republicans. I don't say "moderate" because that's code for "Republicans who will raise your taxes" - I didn't see any of those.

But the Taliban wing of the party were few in number and apparently keeping a low profile. (No open handling of snakes, etc.)

Saxton won the straw poll - no surprise - and Atkinson finished a strong second - big surprise. Mannix was spanked, but the nonrepresentative sample of the party present makes that less significant.

Best parts for me: meeting key conservative bloggers (hello, Sailor) and dancing with three generations of pretty women.

Big Government Databases

The next time someone tells you the answer to some pressing social problem is a massive new government database, read this first - an audit of Australia's main social-service database.

Even more cautionary is this information about Canada's failed gun registry database. Or this one. Or this web site.

Private databases often do poorly as well - see the opening paragraph here. The difference is, when the private firm screws up, they can't tax you - at worst they go out of business and someone smarter takes their place.

Chalkboard's "Open Book$ Project" Slouches Towards Irrelevance

I actually had some hope that the Chalkboard Project would offer up something useful. I was particularly hoping that their "Open Book$ Project" would be good -- it promised to clarify just where all the money goes in K-12 education, educating us through one of my favorite things in public policy, "transparent budgeting."

The term "transparency" has vanished, as has my hope that the Open Book$ Project would be useful -- or that it would be anything other than another exercise in defending the status quo by hiding the relevant facts.

How can you tell that the Open Book$ Project is another union-driven scam? Two items: personnel and approach.

Personnel - the Open Book$ Project is being run by my friend and sometime sparring partner Steve Novick, a mere tool of the unions and big government. Steve excels at cherry-picking his facts to support his preconceived results.

Approach - the Open Book$ Project isn't using Activity Based Costing. For example, look at the accounting for buildings. Rather than allocate buildings to their functions -- i.e. the cost of an administration building should be grouped with other administration expenses -- Steve and friends have a "Buildings" category separate from both administration and actual instruction.

What does that mean? It means that when Portland Public Schools have 16 more schools open than the number of students would support, and a Taj Mahal administrative palace, all sucking scarce dollars away from the schools' instructional mission, you can't tell it from Steve's chosen method of organizing and presenting the data.

Instead, the great goal of the Open Book$ Project is now to be "snazzy." Not scrupulously accurate, not fastidiously clear, not painfully precise, and clearly not transparent.

So Steve Novick is using the Chalkboard Project to give what voters and taxpayers and parents do not need -- more smoke and mirrors.

Budnick is Just All Right with Me

He isn't Jesus, but the Trib's Nick Budnick is actually a very good journalist, and my prior post on the Metro Auditor article didn't reflect my belief that he is. After blogging my rant last Saturday after reading his article, I called him to ask, in essence, who it was that sold him the story.

I was surprised when he said nobody did. But I believe him.

This isn't to imply that, had there been an instigator or a source, that it would have invalidated the story in any way. As the Trib's Jim Redden puts it, in politics there are no virgin births. Had there been a midwife, shall we say, to this story - someone pushing Nick to write it - then the questions are the same: is the story accurate, fair, and newsworthy.

Having spoken now to Nick about it, I'm inclined to believe that he gave Alexis Dow the benefit of the doubt in several areas where he didn't have to, and that he erred on the side of caution. I revise my earlier assessment - not yellow journalism, but perhaps a pale cream color, or a very light blonde.

So where does this leave Dow? In brief, not looking too good. She's got a challenger with apparently roughly equal credentials, and a burst of bad press to overcome. Her next steps should probably be:

1. To the extent she's actually done anything wrong, naughty, or less than good, 'fess up and get it over with. Voters love a repentance.

2. To the extent there's anything to fix, launch a fix-it campaign. If you can't tell the voters that everything's all better, then tell them it's on the way to getting better, and here is your plan. Documenting her actual work hours would be good. (I still think it's irrelevant to a salaried person who is performing well, but public perception will say otherwise.)

3. Hire someone (on her own dime) to perform a 360-degree review of her, interviewing her staff and peers and providing her with a warts-and-all assessment of her performance and image inside Metro. Without that information, it'll be hard to move forward.

4. Hire (on her own dime) a good PR professional and get on the right side of the media. She's got to earn the trust of reporters, and a pro can help her do that by guiding her steps at this crucial time.

Metro needs a very strong auditor, and Dow has proven she is one. I'd hate to roll the dice on whether her challenger is as good.

AP done write English good

Normally the Associated Press (AP) Wire represents the best of professional workday journalism. Occasionally the AP Wire will emit something that does not do justice to the English language.

Such as this piece.

He "is doing very well, better than can be expected considering the bullet wounds," said hospital CEO Vic Fresolone. He said surgeons had repaired intestinal damage caused by the most serious of the wounds.
[...]
A nearby elementary school in Roseburg, a former southwest Oregon timber town of about 21,000 residents, was briefly locked down as a precaution.

First, the intestinal damage was not "caused by ... the wounds" - the intestinal damage IS a wound, caused in this case by one or more bullets.

And Roseburg is "a former southwest Oregon timber town"? What, did they move it to Arizona for better weather?

Metro's Cabal Finds Their Patsy

I predicted earlier that the hit piece on Metro Auditor Alexis Dow was timed and organized to support a rival bid. (Speaking of timing - the story broke just as Dow was going on a long-planned vacation. Makes it hard to fight back, doesn't it?)

Lo and behold, not three days later comes this announcement: Multnomah County Auditor Suzanne Flynn spontaneously decides to challenge Dow.

Did it just now occur to Flynn that she herself is term limited out of her current position? I somehow doubt that.

As for why one might see Flynn as a patsy... we know Metro is a haunt of Smart Growth religious extremists. Turns out Flynn has a master's degree in Urban Planning.

How that helps an auditor is a mystery - but it explains her passion for joining the High Church of Planning and Smart Growth. She's already a true believer too.

That could be bad news for Metro as an organization. If everyone's a true believer and nobody's a skeptic, it's easy to fall into Groupthink and make enormous mistakes. It's also a reason to question Flynn's ability to audit objectively. If she's a true-blue believer in the holy mission, will she ask the tough questions that Dow has asked?

Color me skeptical of Flynn's fitness for this position, and doubly skeptical of someone who'd be a party to the dishonest smear attack on Dow.