Mayor Hales focuses on school safety, roads as term begins
PORTLAND, Ore. – Charlie Hales will be sworn in as Portland’s 52nd mayor at a public ceremony Wednesday morning and he has pledged to make school safety a top priority following the deadly shootings in Newtown, Connecticut.
The Willamette Week newspaper reports Hales has scheduled a meeting with Portland Police Chief Mike Reese and local school district superintendents to discuss security at local schools.
Hales said there are "too many guns out there" and he wants people to “stay angry” about the Sandy Hook shootings.
"I want us to be furious that those lives were cut short, and resolute to do something about it. Not just mourn and celebrate those victims, but honor those victims by anger and passion and action, not just by remembrance and respect," Hales told the Willamette Week.
Hales has also said he wants to focus on the 60 miles of unpaved streets in Portlandalong with other road work.
Hales was officially sworn in just after midnight Tuesday morning in a small ceremony. He will take the oath of office publicly at 10 a.m. at City Hall in Portland.
Along with the start of Hales’ tenure as mayor, January 2 also marks some other changes in Portland’s political landscape.
Long-time Portland City Commissioner Randy Leonard is retiring and will be replaced by Steve Novick, who has also run for the mayor’s position in the past.
Hales also asked the city’s Transportation Director, Tom Miller, to resign and Miller has agreed to do so. Hales chief of staff said no other firings are planned.
Hales also said he plans changes to police hiring procedures and use of force rules following a stretch of deadly police shootings in the recent past.
Amanda Fritz, Dan Saltzman and Nick Fish are all returning as members of the City Council.
every crook is hoping for the public to have their guns taken away from them so their life will be safer as they break the law and make you their victim. crime goes up 600% when the public looses it's right to defend itself.
Keeping people angry while making laws really sounds like a good and logical maneuver..... People have never made a good decision while angry! It was angry people that toppled the Russian Czar for socialism.(more people died under 50 years of socialism than under 300 years of the Romanov dynasty.) It was angry National Guardsmen that shot unarmed students at Kent State. It was angry people that rioted in So. California following the policeman's trail over beating Rodney King. It takes calm, level and open minded thinking to pass laws that will truly work. Until someone can honestly predict the future, we will always have a potential for violent crime. ALWAYS! Politicians saying ,"we need to insure this will never happen again" are only spouting off rhetoric that will endear them to the public. As long as we walk free, we can hurt one another. Did Timothy McVeay use a gun? Everything he used is still legal to get. And the media told us all just how he did it, thereby giving other psychos the knowledge of how to blow up buildings. Yeah, let's write laws while we are angry.....
@MickRoh Good point! It is always best to use prudence over anger when making big decisions. Likewise in sports (or battlefield), it usually works in your favor to get your enemy angry as they will act stupidly.
I might just add that it was angry people that past Prohibition into law and we saw what that did..... Capone would have not even been a footnote in history if it wasn't for Prohibition. I'm not saying which way to go on "gun control". I'm saying that we must be calm and clear in our thinking before we enact any more laws! Write ones that will work and won't end up being another failed attempt or unenforcable flop.
When does the Sam Adams for Governor campaign begin?
 @Dirtman ~  Bite thy tongue, Dirtman..!   What an AWFUL thought..! Â
...shudder...
Please. Don't say depressing things on the 2nd day of the New Year!
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Here is his chance to really clean up the Portland City Council and to rehabilitate Portland into a more friendly atmosphere. Good luck!
The State of Oregon knows that many guns come up the I-5 Corridor and they don't even make anyone slow down at the border. They are the real criminals who do NOTHING to stop crime.
They could make people stop in traffic as California does and they won't even try it.
Lame. Incompetent and then blame Republicans for everything they can. They take the easy road.Â
 @Lei22 Californians piss me off too but you want a state border stop? For illegal search and seizure?
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 @Lei22 What good would making people stop do? They still can't search your vehicle. Guns aren't the problem anyway.
What about gang/cartel violence which in turn affects quality of life, etc? LOL
That's too hard for Democrats to deal with.
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 @Lei22 And the Republicans make it easier for them to get guns...
No, they make it easier for normal people to protect themselves from home invasions.Â
It's going to be more of the same.....bike paths and needless projects.
Good riddance to bad rubbish!
We'll see if our new exalted leader really leads.
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He can start by running a city in a very lean fiscal fashion.
Stop with the foolish, money wasting, feel-good projects.
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Return the roads to as they were before bicycle lanes.
Cement in the swales. Remove speed bumps.
Remove trees and other obstacles from the middle
of many streets. Cease renaming streets that have
had the same familiar names for a hundred years.
Butt out of garbage collection. Butt out of a grocer's
decision as to what type of bags they wish to use.
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Fire bad cops.
Retraining does nothing to change their warped psyches.
Pull out of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and refuse
to accept Federal dollars that have many strings attached.
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And most of all, listen to the majority as opposed to
listening strictly to people supporting the mayor's personal agenda.
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You've got a lot of work to dump Sam's expensive policies.
Good luck.
@Mipsfer Mipsfer Why would you spend money cementing in the bioswales? That seems foolish and oxymoronic, as your overall point is about wasted money.
The gun problem has a simple solution when you look to other successful societies. Japan had only 11 people killed (homicides) by guns in 2008.
 @Spiffy ~  That kind of "gun control" is MUCH easier to do when you're a relatively small island, all of which you control...and when you don't have an "open" (read: extremely porous) border with a country whose main exports to YOUR country are illegal drugs and illegal people...Â
 @Spiffy What about the non gun homicides though? Is a knife homicide somehow better than a gun homicide?
 @SpiffyÂ
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They also don't have massive illegal immigration because they are STRICT and you are using a simple comparison which has NOTHING to do with the US.Â
One thing to keep in mind is that the mayor has no control over public schools and does not overseer this branch of the government. What the heck is he going to do about guns and safety? Gun laws will prevent such things from happening in the future, right? What about sending police to the schools to protect them; the rich and elite have armed guards, why can't the poor?
 @portlandborn83Â
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How many rich and elite in Portland have armed guards? LOL
They may have security systems - but that saves taxpayer's money.
The poor need to move to safer areas. They aren't completely helpless.Â
@Lei22 @portlandborn83 Are you going to give the poor the extra income they will need in order to move to a better neighborhood? Or is that just something that will magically appear? Safe neighborhoods cost money! And apartment complexes are not safe, in my opinion! Almost all of the violent crime in my district happens either at these complexes or at MAX stations and convenience stores.
@MickRoh LOL, MickRoh. It seems we are thinking alike. : )
@Lei22 @portlandborn83 Lei22, you do realize the poor cannot afford to move to "safer areas", don't you? It takes money to move. Also, moving to a "safer area" would probably increase their housing costs which they more than likely cannot afford. Would you be willing to foot the entire bill for all of the poor to be able to move to said "safer areas"?
Kinda makes me laugh that he's getting sworn in accompanied by champagne - Party on, Wayne!
Hint: Charlie, there aren't too many guns out there, just too many criminals and crazy people.
Aw man, here we go again...
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I'm all for having the roads paved (provided they can work in tandem with the utilities so they don't pave and then have it torn up the next week for routine maintenance). But using negative emotions (fear, anger) to fuel policy change is never a good thing, and more bikeway projects? Seriously? COME ON.
Reactionary Hales will just go with the polls and is a typical politician who will do nothing important.
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From the looks of it he will create division with his gun issue.
"""""""Hales told the Willamette Week that there are too many guns on the streets and he wants people to âstay angryâ about the Sandy Hook shootings. "I want us to be furious that those lives were cut short, and resolute to do something about it. Not just mourn and celebrate those victims, but honor those victims by anger and passion and action, not just by remembrance and respect."Â """""""
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Nothing like crafting gun laws based on emotion......[rolleyes]
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Excellent video explaining gun rights in a logical and rational way
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRAw3VWVyD8
 @kramr Well, I don't know. I am angry about what happened, too. But what we really need is lunatic control, not more gun laws. I think we could start by getting lunatics OUT of office instead of putting more in. But of course I am not wealthy and corrupt, so I can't even consider running.
 @AmiM  @kramr ~ I agree with you, Ami...  I'm angry about what happened at Sandy Hook, too... and also about what happened at CTC just a couple days prior to Sandy Hook... But I'm angry at the SHOOTERS; not at what they used.   Being "angry at the guns" is like being angry at the CAR when the drunk driver behind its wheel runs a red light and plows into another car, killing an innocent family.  Â
I'm not sure why this concept is so hard for so many people to understand, but it is... They understand and agree with it when it's about cars and drink drivers, but not with guns and criminals/mentally ill shooters...
And making ANY decisions about gun control or whatever when people and legislators are emotionally charged up is one of the stupidist ideas I've ever heard..! Â I was hoping for better from Hales... wrong again, I guess... glad I live in Salem...