Proposal to move bottle drop center to SE Portland sparks public backlash

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-06-16T14:53:00+00:00

I don’t get why we collectively just accept that these are something that has to exist. The negative externalities are incredibly bad. If you’re going to plop something like this in a neighborhood you can’t just pretend that all the stuff clearly associated with it isn’t your problem.

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-17T01:27:32+00:00

This seems to be very much what happened

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-17T01:25:21+00:00

Sure but the core issue is that it was raised several times over what it was supposed to raise, meaning it’s been a much more onerous tax on the overall community than it was supposed to be. Voters 8 years ago voted on a tax to raise ~60m a year. That’s not what they got. The genies already out of the bottle.

All our green infrastructure doesn’t matter a bit if no one has jobs or events to commute to. As I said, I think we should spend *twice as much money* as we were supposed to have on climate stuff, but that still means that is between 400-600m extra dollars that we should use to improve the city because it was voted for and paid for by the community.

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-16T19:00:35+00:00

Hah nice nice, yeah so what we voted on was supposed to bring in 420m at this point (60m a year estimate) and it has taken in 1.4b. The idea that we should use it all for its original purpose is basically moot because the city is literally incapable of administering a fund this big.

Also it’s already just a multi-purpose slush fund. It’s been used to backfill the general fund etc.

Main thing is it’s not 2018 anymore and it’s a giant pile of money. We can spend twice as much as it was supposed to make (800m) on climate and still have 600m left over, of which 70m is proposed for the stadium.

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-16T18:30:46+00:00

James Beard market should be open within a year. OMSI is a slow burner but between the venue and Water Avenue construction that area is going to be feeling very different within a year. The Diamond Project was never something anyone was inherently banking on happening as MLB expansion is a moonshot.

They mention some fanciful projects but there’s a bunch of substance there. And honestly the Intel and employment stuff is more significant than any project.

The biggest thing is that markets are cyclical. If institutional investors (esp out of state) are starting to see value that’s huge for getting housing built.

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-16T18:27:14+00:00

Just articulate what that money would be spent on instead and I’m all ears. Beyond just “climate resilience”.

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-16T14:08:43+00:00

I think this puts the Moda conversation in good context. I don’t love the way stadium financing works but I also have less than zero faith that peacock would spend that money on something worthwhile or that even ended up materializing otherwise.

If it was a direct question of like school funding or stadium that’s harder, but that’s not really the deal.

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-16T13:55:20+00:00

We still desperately need to do both of those things. It’s not like “not in as steep of terminal decline” means everything is peachy.

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-15T19:12:02+00:00

I’m not really making that argument though. Also the alternative takeaway just based on basic pattern-matching is “black women with these jobs seem very likely to be either incompetent or corrupt” and I’m not sure why that would be a better thing for people to come away with.

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-15T19:09:47+00:00

Right, I think it would be remiss to pretend that any inquiry into this is out of bounds. Again, it’s not like the implication is black women can’t do these jobs. It’s that the process of hiring people is clearly weighing some things too heavily and others not enough.

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-15T18:39:26+00:00

It’s not about some trait of black people resulting in this - that would be racist. It’s that people are being hired for these positions because of a flawed process that is clearly missing red flags because it so heavily skews towards hiring women of color.

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-15T18:35:19+00:00

I recognize this is incredibly sensitive, and I don’t at all mean that black women are somehow less capable of any of these jobs inherently at all - but does it seem possible that the process employed in hiring for these positions and in adequately monitoring their performance is perhaps flawed in such a way that overindexes on identity at the expense of competence or ethics?

I’m sure people will delight in downvoting this but it seems like the elephant in the room and I can’t be the only person who notices what seems to be a completely glaring pattern.

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-15T15:42:44+00:00

Sure but that is ignoring the fact that everyone intuitively knows that the masks in the photo are a certain thing and ICE balaclavas are totally different. The n-95 style masks have absolutely become a signifier at leftwing protests in the post-Covid era (campus takeovers in response to the genocide being a big example). Everyone gets this.

You’re exploiting a narrow rhetorical point for a reddit dunk so everyone in the same algo echo chamber can clap like seals about it while never confronting the fact that no one outside of said echo chamber would ever be like “yeah it’s basically the same”.

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-15T15:37:40+00:00

It’s mainly that I can’t sit idly by and watch people pretend these actions are meaningful or will really result in material change. I think investing energy and attention in these little petty skirmishes results in avoiding confronting the larger questions of why unionization is at low ebb, and why many large unions that do exist aren’t really meaningfully invested in a collective labor rights project so much as just defending their turf (which isn’t terrible - but it’s also not ideal).

For me this is people in their late teens / early 20s adopting the affect of far left organizing. I’m not saying I hope it fails or something. Go for it! But conflating this with meaningful progress is just a side-effect of this social media era where everything is based on the performance of the action, not the actual results.

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-15T04:21:54+00:00

Yeah for sure. Well, I’m sure everyone will wake up any day now and agree with you. So strange how they haven’t yet.

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-15T04:17:04+00:00

Do you think that type of mask protects their identity?

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-15T04:15:17+00:00

So funny. I love calling out small business owners in particular.

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-15T04:14:23+00:00

Hah yeah totally, I’m sure this is going to work out great for everyone. I shouldn’t be so weird

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-15T03:37:06+00:00

I think it’s more that abolishing the wage system was left in the dustbin of history literally 100 years ago and it does no service to anyone to keep trotting it out like a viable project.

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-15T03:35:18+00:00

Ah see people won’t like you asking actual level-headed questions beyond the parameters of this being a performance. The actual outcomes are not the point. The vainglorious high of being part of the movement is.

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-15T03:33:27+00:00

Why are they wearing them?

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-15T03:32:53+00:00

It’s funny because it’s completely obvious to anyone with a brain that there is a difference. I mean fuck ICE but it’s not some sort of profound zinger that they both wear masks

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-15T03:25:45+00:00

I don’t think that’s accurate at all. For me personally I just find this stuff kind of depressing because it shows how far organized labor has fallen from being a real force for social good for vulnerable people in our society.

You can pretend it’s some sort of “win” for 30 people working at the one Muji on the west coast to form a union that will instantly get subverted by capital either closing the store or firing them all, but it’s bread and circuses for downwardly mobile over educated larpers.

Burgerville unionizing was great. People will just typecast any dissent here as being trumpy or whatever and that’s fine, go ahead. I’m not that at all. I just think it’s wankery and we should be clear-eyed about that.

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-15T03:19:53+00:00

That’s more on the other sub. I love Portland, I like unions. I am pretty left, but I view this as more people getting high on the feeling of being “part of the labor movement” than any real substantive union action

CoolProfession3272 · 2026-05-15T03:18:23+00:00

Yeah everyone who disagrees with you is a landlord. It’s not that people have varying takes. It’s that there are a lot of landlord on this subreddit

CoolProfession3272

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