A 'doomer' conundrum

The ‘doomer’ community in Portland was all aflutter Monday with two different, yet equal choices to make as to what prominent doomsday seer they should go see to get a complete, truthful picture of the economic deflationary depression we find ourselves entering into without “official” government acknowledgement.

In Westbrook, an event procured by the University of New England held at the Westbrook Performing Arts Center played host to M.I.T. professor Noam Chomsky. He’s been called by many one of the foremost thinkers in our time, and was set to speak about how odd it is that while people in Arab nations are uprising against governments for various rights, Americans seem to be more than willing to lay face down and take it from this corp.gov – allowing entry into our private lives and private parts – removing even the veneer of freedom in a land that no longer resembles the one we inherited.

Here in Portland, at the Wishcamper Center at USM, Nicole Foss aka “Stoneleigh” from the economic blog “The Automatic Earth” was making an appearance to talk about the causes for and ways to cope with the new, greater depression.

As described by Wikipedia, which does the best job of wrapping it up in one sentence, a ‘doomer’ is “one who believes that Peak Oil will cause the collapse of industrial civilization.” Basically, although we will never “run out” of oil, the increased supply required to fuel current population growth and the sort of economic “good times” (aka “growth”) oil barons helped bankers manipulate over the last 110 years that kept all us, to quote Henry Kissinger, “useless eaters” happy, just isn’t going to seep out of the ground like it used to.

So for me, because Mr. Chomsky, while touching on certain economic themes close to a doomer’s heart, is a guy who still hangs on to the belief that we’re somehow going to be able to work together to magically eliminate corruption and save the scraps of the current system, the choice was easy. For a more realistic view, and some hardcore doom, I went with Nicole Foss. Plus, I have to admit a huge contributing factor in making the decision. The 4 bus to Westbrook during rush hour is jam packed; I could walk to USM.

So there I was, eagerly waiting the start of Ms. Foss’ presentation in Lee Hall, a large room in the new Muskie School complex. While sitting in the chairs that while new, ironically were better suited for the chair-through-windows looting that will occur as we descend deeper into depression than they were for sitting, I mused to myself how much money was wasted during our growthapalooza on buildings like these that will serve no purpose when the grid goes down. I thought it odd, too, that the talk we were about to listen to would focus on the mistakes made in part by the very type of students to come out of one of these public policy-maker factories. Then I remembered our new mayor taught here. Then, I thought “oh, s___!” And finally, the program started, clamping down the brakes on the in-my-mind horror train, The Irony Express.

For those in the standing-room only audience that had followed Foss’ work, her overall message remained unchanged, though it was nice to see it all laid out, chronologically and presented as an entire package. Foss lays out the history of credit booms and busts, going back to the Tulip craze of the 1720’s right up and through the first great depression. Then came the description of the current credit build up, only this time was different – this time our growth depended on Fossil Fuels. She explains that this credit crunch was bound to happen, showing how a boom crunches in cycles throughout history and even without the problem of increasing fossil demand versus flattening or declining supplies; we would have dropped us into this “recession.” The problem, she explained, will be facilitating a return to the post World War 2 economic system we all are clinging to right now, the idea of infinite growth. She showed, with plenty of evidence that it can’t happen mathematically, scientifically or continue as it is as I am writing this now, superficially propped up by government.

Instead, she told the audience that we are going to experience a world-wide deflationary depression “at best just as bad as the Great Depression, but more likely much worse.” She showed the beginning of the current credit expansion, which took off in the early 1980’s, and told us to “expect the value of your assets to at least return to levels not seen since the 1970’s, and more likely much lower.” She advised people to maintain liquidity, invest only in hard, tangible assets and to stay away from equities, as markets are certain to crash in the near term. Before I left, a member audience asked about the future of the younger generations, and Ms. Foss replied, with a heavy heart, “It’s a horrible thing that we (baby boomers) have done to you.”

These aren’t the type of messages you are going to hear, the truth, come from the mouths of Brian Williams-types on the media owned by, from the President who’s advisers, cabinet members and campaign contributors personally profit from, or the congress members who insider-trade in, the system that is beyond repair and will not resemble anything us useless eater consumers remember. Kicking the can, finger pointing, protection from prosecution and computerized money manipulation will be the game the one-per centers play until it’s too late and we’ve dished out all the liquidity in the system there is for them to grab. This useless eating citizen is going to hold on to the cash and buckle in for what promises to be the advanced ski trail downhill ride of 2012, avoiding every tree in my path as long as I can.

Grab your ski poles.

(Jeffrey S. Spofford manages circulation for The Portland Daily Sun.)

Decking the Halls with Christmas Balls

While walking toward the corner of Elm and Congress yesterday, I looked up after a woman behind me screeched, “holy s*, its f*ing huge!” Knowing she couldn’t mean me, I decided to scan my surroundings to see the object of her enthusiastic yelp, and there it was. Majestic and almost too girthy to fit between the light posts adorned with banners suggesting we ‘love Portland more’ in front of city hall, was the city’s official Holiday Tree.

The Portland Police cruisers came first, officers inside of which were all excited to perform the quick left and quick swing around to the right that definitely looks the coolest when performed in a Crown Vic. The cruiser maneuvers served to close Congress, forcing oncoming cars down Elm. The semi with the tree, freshly cut from South Portland, barreled past, ushering both the tree and the holiday season to our city.

Standing in Monument Square watching the crane erect its sturdy arm to lift the tree into place, I heard the sounds of excitement come from the crowd that turned out to be, courtesy of the seasonably mild weather we’re having, pretty large. Santa Claus made an appearance. The ‘Tax The Rich’ placard-holding-guy even showed up. Television cameras were properly aimed and the newspaper photographers were in place. Seeing the tree go up, I started to get all excited about the holiday season. I thought about how nice the tree would look all lit up and thought about the other decorations the city puts up around town. Then I remembered the best part about Christmastime decorating in Portland.

The return of the Christmas Balls.

With a slight turn to the left, I saw one dangling there. I quickly looked all around. Every light post had a ball. The time and temperature building had its special cornucopia-style lights. There were big ones, little ones, round ones and oval. The Christmas balls were firmly in place. The tree’s arrival suggested the season was nearing. The balls confirmed that suggestion as fact.

Art can be a controversial thing in this city. From forty-five thousand dollar benches to waves of steel, it is sometimes whispered by others and on my mind that Portland shouldn’t waste its money on frivolous pieces. But when it comes to the lighted balls, the display of which in my opinion makes Portland one of the prettiest cities in the country during the holidays, I could care less about the cost. They are truly the most beautiful pieces of public art I have seen anywhere.

So next Friday, after our mad rush to buy foreign made plastic consumer goods we don’t need, stop by the tree lighting and at the same time, see the Christmas Balls lit up in all their glory - serving their purpose as the holiday season’s official beacons of Portland.

There’s a lot at ‘stake’ with question 2.

I had a lovely conversation yesterday with one of our most loyal and complimentary readers who, when the stars are properly aligned, I meet up with at the last delivery of the morning in Payson Park. I asked her what is now in Portland the question of the hour, “How are you ranking the mayor race?”

She told me she wasn’t sure, and asked my opinion. I went over my feelings of my personal ‘top five.’ We both agreed the Civic Center was a colossal waste of money, and that what little the state legislature could accomplish this year in the form of a voter registration over-haul should be left to stand. Then came question 2.

Harness Racing action at Scarborough Downs

Like most Portlanders I’ve spoken to, she was against voting to allow a replacement for the old, decrepit Scarborough Downs to be built in Biddeford, which along with it would come the preservation of the generations-old harness horse racing industry in the state and, oh yeah, slot machines. And when it came to gambling, I could see her point. We all feel Maine is better than having to allow cheap Atlantic City-like amusements to raise a few bucks, and that was her concern as well.

But there are so many things at stake that are all loaded into this referendum. The issue of whether or not there should be gambling isn’t one of them. We’ve been there and done that when we voted to allow a casino to be built up in the boonies last year.

I’ve grown to hate the word “jobs.” It’s the catch-phrase for everything politics that will come to define “empty promises” by the time the politicians that abuse the word get into office to find they’re powerless and incapable of creating them. So for question 2, I’ll use the term “employment,” which is what a yes vote to question 2 will provide not just to the 300ish people working at the new Biddeford Downs or the hundreds of construction people it will take to build it, but the thousands of people that are supported by the harness racing industry the ‘evil’ slots that come with question 2 are designed to prop-up.

A trip to the horse barns on the back lot of Scarborough Downs helps tell the story. There you will find hard working Maine families, their children in tow, tending to their horses. Horsemen, representing farms and thousands of acres of open farmland across our state, are there working at the site daily, not knowing whether they will have a job next year. Farmers that mow hay, employees at feed stores, blacksmiths and horse trainers are also at the edge of their saddles.

It’s been argued that the owners of Scarborough Downs could build a new racetrack in Biddeford anyway. “They’re already operating a race track without slot machines now, so if they want a new facility, build it!” That’s a fair take for people who haven’t been to Scarborough Downs lately. With both off-track betting and just an overall dying interest in the sport, a Sunday race might attract one hundred people maximum. The grandstand at the Downs, once filled with people on a race day, stands deserted now as horses race by. To preserve the industry, the farms and the farmers in this state, they need another way to draw people in. The median 55 year old female slot demographic, skipping a trip to Cumby’s for their Maine State Lottery scratch tickets and hauling their husbands to the track, is just the ticket, pun intended.

Without that influx of people, a new facility would be almost as senseless as trying to keep the current one open and once the Scarborough property, up for sale, eventually is sold; sold-out and out-of-business will be the tradition that is harness racing in Southern Maine. Not only will the jobs created by establishing a new resort facility be lost, but ones that have existed for generations. All this, because some of us Portlanders would never dream of pulling the lever of a slot machine and think that no one else should either.

Let’s help people in Biddeford gain employment and preserve the harness racing industry across our state with a ‘yes’ vote on question 2. Let’s get those scratchers to skip buying a ticket, take the Grand Marquis down to Biddeford, pull a lever and maybe watch a race or two.

Cumby’s will do just fine.

The Nathan Clifford Hostage Crises

It was after walking past a lonely snowman waving to the street below from an empty classroom and a pile of telephone books, delivered in early summer, left to rot away on its front door I found myself sitting at a well-worn school lunch table in the chilly basement of the Nathan Clifford School Wednesday night. Seventy people from the neighborhood that forms a triangle between Brighton Avenue, St. John Street and I-295 had gathered there at the urging of fluorescent fliers affixed to telephone poles suggesting we would learn what the future may hold for the abandoned school building.

Ed Suslovic, city councilor for the district and homeowner in the neighborhood I’ve dubbed “South Oakdale,” began the meeting by introducing us to Aaron Duffey. Aaron stood up, and gave a brief synopsis of who he was and why we were there. He explained that in addition to the future of the school, which would be saved for last, we also would include a discussion about the potential redesign of the six-point intersection of Deering and Brighton Avenues and Falmouth and Bedford Streets and any other neighborhood-specific issues.

We also heard from a ranking member of the rarely-heard-from Woodfords-Oakdale Neighborhood Association. I put two and two together and determined that with our councilor’s blessing and Aaron’s inclination to lead such an effort, we were witnessing a (welcomed) secession from that association and forming our own.

And so it went. The intersection discussion was up first, followed by neighbors discussing how to handle noise complaints, a possible change in how the neighborhood on-street parking is handled, graffiti and the increase of theft instances. After forty minutes of back and forth on these issues, we got down to the business of Nathan Clifford.

Ed introduced us to the school committee member for the neighborhood, Laurie Davis. Laurie explained how the school committee had not yet voted to turn the building back over to the city. The audience piped up and naturally inquired as to why, and it was learned that the issue “hadn’t come up” before the committee. She continued by telling the crowd that the school finance committee wanted to “have assurance” from the city that the committee “would get its fair share of the proceeds” from a future sale of the building. It turns out laying the hand out on the table showing the “it’s all about the money” card might not have been a good idea in a room full of what rapidly turned from concerned neighbors to frustrated abutters.

Sensing I think the mood of the crowd, Ed loudly accused the school committee of “holding the neighborhood hostage” with their “back room deals,” preventing the city from moving forward with a plan, which we had yet to learn about, for the building. Laurie was on the defensive, saying, while standing beneath steam radiators with their paint peeling, that the school committee felt that it should be rewarded for their investments in and taking care of the building through the years. She insisted that she had “no idea” that having a large building sitting abandoned in the middle of a residential neighborhood was an issue that was raising the ire of its abutters. Yelled one neighbor in response, “How could you not know that?”

Nathan Clifford School on Falmouth St.

Ed took over to introduce us to Dr. Monroe Duboise. He is the director of the USM SEPA Project and Maine ScienceCorps and is an Associate Professor of Applied Medical Sciences at USM. It was nice to see him. I first met Monroe back in March, when I went to see him in his laboratory to discuss a plan he had to turn the Nathan Clifford School into the Center for Science, Technology and Human Innovation.

It was an exciting plan. It was to be a “venue for engaging citizens of all ages in exploration and learning at the creative frontiers of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.” A center like no other in the state, with the closest such place being the Boston Museum of Science. It was a plan that would preserve architect John Calvin Stevens’ original intent for the building as a center for learning. It was an idea which would preserve amenities like the playground and green space behind the building for community use. It was the ultimate plan.

When we spoke back then, Monroe indicated to me that he felt like he would have all his ducks in a row, have a 501.3.c formed to raise funds and be able to start a build-out by the end of September. Remembering this as September past, I lost hope as I continued to walk by the empty building thinking that perhaps Monroe had given up on the center after being tangled in the viscous back-room bureaucracy that is Portland. But he hadn’t, and he presented his plan to everyone in the room. It was warmly received.

After the Science Center presentation, the crowd’s attention refocused on the school committee member. Someone asked when the school board would act to turn the building over to the city. An answer of “soon” wasn’t enough, and another asked how long. When three weeks was suggested, another person made her promise.

Until then, the Nathan Clifford School, with its rooms left trashed, yard strewn with glass and the heat set to fifty remains the hostage of the school committee for a cut on the deal. It’s hard to say what those back room discussions might be, but my “back-room-mind” guess is that the school committee would much rather see the building chopped up into condos by the highest bidder and get their double-digit percentage of the proceeds. Based on that thought, it would seem that adding to the kitty to them is much better than turning the hostage over to the city so we can lease it to some non-profit for a nominal fee, and they are going to hold out until the city promises such or the roof falls in, whichever comes first.

And with such an exciting plan on the table, that’s a shame.

Another 40 on the road to oblivion

I couldn’t even begin to imagine closing down a newspaper with a circulation of twenty-two thousand subscribers in the immediate greater Portland area, but that is what occurred on February 1, 1991 when the Evening Express left the local media machine for good under the headline “Goodbye.”

Circulation was on the decrease, it was argued. Why publish a hyper-local paper when the Express’ sister publication, the Press Herald, was publishing a state-wide paper with a reach from Kittery straight on up to Bangor? Better, they could merge the Express newsroom into one and put out a product that was all things to all subscribers, and save a little money in the meantime.

The Express was a relic of turn-of-the-twentieth century newspapering that occurred in cities across the country. Then, cities of all sizes were host to multiple daily newspapers representing a whole spectrum of views. The Press Herald itself is the result of a merger between the Portland Press and the Herald Advertiser.

Hyper-local papers: Our past, our future.

I believe the newspaper industry, as well as the economy in general is returning to the local ideology of those earlier times. In decline since 2007, the large regional newspaper model has told its own story in a slew of dismal headlines. Yesterday’s announcement that the Press Herald was eliminating 40 jobs was no exception. It’s truly a shame and didn’t need to happen.

Just like the current downturn we’re experiencing as a nation, the downturn in the newspaper industry started as far back as thirty years ago. Decisions that took what were local, sustainable papers and turned them into the infinite growth machines they became by expanding their reach both geographically and editorially have plateaued. First came the geographic expansions of the 1970s. Papers would go further and further away from their home bases, adding motor routes to service new subscribers until they were as far as they could go and be deliverable by seven in the morning. Soon, regional distribution centers were opened across the paper’s new regions to centralize the management of all the new routes.

A few years after the routes were established, the editorial expansions began. Former local, but now regional newspapers opened bureau after bureau and staffed them with reporters and support personnel. Indeed, some of the best local reporting came out of regional newspapers in the 80’s and 90’s. Sure, the papers had lost focus on their original urban cores, but the honey pot was where the mall was, proof of which is on display here locally on Spring Street in SoPo, where in 1989 the Press Herald built its cavernous printing facility with the intention of moving their entire operation there. The city of Portland somehow convinced them not to abandon their downtown offices, however. The paper remained there until just last year. The South Portland facility sits largely unused to this day.

All of these decisions served the infinite growth beast that until 2008 was our economy. The expansions served to increase ad sales and subscriber growth right up until the best year regional newspapers will ever experience with regard to revenue came and went, 2006.

Then the e-brake was applied to the idea of infinite growth, and with it a whole slew of other industries. Papers that had grown ten-fold in a relatively short amount of time were forced to cut back dramatically. They did so in the exact opposite direction they grew. First the bureaus were closed and editorial staff members were laid off.

Then came the catch-22. I was sitting in my car in a parking lot in Bangor at 1:30 in the morning on a Sunday four years ago waiting for the truck carrying the Sunday Telegram to arrive after having lost a coin toss to cover for the vacationing Bangor area circulation manager. The truck arrived, carrying 700 papers that were to be handed out to twenty-five different carriers for delivery. The routes that originated from that parking lot stretched from Bar Harbor all the way to Houlton.

I sat there and just shook my head thinking about the average revenue of $1.25 per paper versus what we were forced to compensate the carriers, which at the time was an average of nearly two dollars. I would return to the Press Herald building armed with Power Points explaining why these routes needed to end, if for anything else to stop the bleeding of red ink. But we couldn’t stop them. The paper had grown too big. We needed every bit of circulation we could scrape together, to continue to charge the ad rates that supported the operation. Even as subscribers disappeared from routes, we would still have to deliver them, I was told.

Now, carriers on rural routes at regional papers across the country are being compensated to deliver newspapers at rates that exceed revenue even closer to their cores as their own coverage cutbacks and internet competition for regional and state news eats away at subscriber bases. Add to that the ever increasing cost of fuel to transport long distances, and you have a recipe for disaster. The mistakes, decisions and big dreams of the baby-boomer newspapermen have come crashing down around them, and they still haven’t come to terms with the new reality that is on the horizon for newspapers, industry and the economy in general best stated by author James Howard Kunstler in this paper Tuesday: “to contract, de-globalize, downscale, and go local.”

So the layoffs at large regional newspapers, including the one in our own backyard, will continue. The times that allowed for anything in our economy that was large in scale are drawing to an abrupt close. I wonder now after the inevitable closure of some of the larger papers, if executives will be able to look back and see how things might have been different if they maintained their original turn of the twentieth century local sustainable model? Things would certainly be different.

You might even be reading the Express right now.

The great gentrification

A few weeks back, an acquaintance on Facebook posted that she was, yet again, being woken up by the early morning sound of construction on Munjoy Hill. The comment didn’t surprise me; Munjoy Hill has gone through a huge transformation over the last twenty years. The gentrification is well under way, working to displace the very people that have made Munjoy Hill into the “East End” it is today in favor of the well-off people that, after raising their kids in the suburbs, have decided to reclaim their youth and “move back to the city.”

It’s a story that has happened in every East Coast city to the south of us, and is starting to reach the point of no return here. Places like SoHo in New York, or Kenmore Square in Boston — places that used to be the center of specific cultures that transformed cities from the wastelands they had become due to suburban sprawl into the places, after having screwed them over in the 1950s, wealthy people wished to return to. I quickly responded that the sound of construction she was hearing would soon be followed by the sound of a moving truck hauling her butt to Riverton. She responded in agreement, saying “I give it a year.”

Back in the day, the Hill was the place where the older twenty-something guys who liked to party, with Miller High Life and a bowl, holed up in sketchy apartments that attracted the high school girls we would all pine after but couldn’t get and because high school dudes didn’t have access to the aforementioned bait. Parties, crime and good times were the way of the day. Over time, young people, drawn to the hill for the low rents, started to move into the area, replace the high life with a bottle of red, paint their front doors some off-the-wall color to stand out, plant a sunflower and voila — the culturally diverse and desirable Hill was born. Now, like all affordable housing in the city for working people, we find ourselves in danger of losing it.

In addition to the rents being artificially inflated by the city subsidizing housing for people who don’t work, the upgrades to buildings by the people who have rediscovered the city have started to push rents from the seven hundred dollar range to upwards of twelve-to-thirteen hundred dollars. The only help available for a middle class worker? An extra shift or a second job.

The city doesn’t care. The political class focuses on the one hundred percent subsidized poor and how they are the ones that need the assistance. The building upgrades are netting more property tax revenue, and “you middle class people can just tough it out.” Adding insult to injury, they even come out with a two percent tax increase this year, which doesn’t hurt the wealthy and isn’t paid by the poor.

It seems to me this city would just as soon trade us in for the “new people” coming to town, and all this supposed “business” the mayoral candidates speak of. It seems that those of us who remain in the ashes of the great gentrification are being told: “You’ll be taxed until you too need subsidization and oh — we have the perfect apartment for you just off the beaten path and out of sight.”

At that point, the perfect utopia city planners have really been after will be realized. Of course, Portland won’t be the vibrant, diverse city it is today, but it certainly will look pretty. How do we stop it? Seek out the candidates that stress the terms “homeowner” and “taxpayer.” Reward the people seeking city office that don’t just talk about jobs that pay 10 bucks an hour answering phones, but jobs that put Portland to work making actual products that people need to live.

Most importantly, stay away from the candidates bringing in large amounts of “campaign money.”

It’s not coming from us.

Portland while you were sleeping

Portland is a very different city after you’ve gone to bed. The utopia that “just needs a little vision” the more polished mayoral candidates speak of and the “total governmental tax burdening disaster but otherwise okay town” the riff-raff decry is riddled with a drug abusing and/or mentally disturbed underclass that roam the streets causing trouble on the entire peninsula and the busier thoroughfares on the other side of 295. Usually an “innocent” travelling the streets will only run into it here and there and give it only a fleeting thought. On Thursday morning, while out delivering this paper, it was blatant, it was everywhere and the scene presented provided me a glimpse into our future.

We begin at the Jetport at 2am, where all was quiet. Approaching Libbytown inbound on Congress Street I started to notice a lot of people walking and biking. A lot for this time of day is more than two. There were five. I thought nothing of it and descended into the St. John valley.

Stopping at the Greyhound station for a delivery, I’m usually tripping or glancing over a “regular” from the homeless community. The people without homes that have lived in the city for an extended time seem to have claimed the St. John valley for themselves. The newer homeless population that moved here based on the true rumors that Portland was the cat’s meow for the almighty hand out seems to stick around the Bayside area where those dreams are realized. Instead of the usual one or two people at the station, there were seven people hanging around – and not the regular faces. The faces there looked even less savory than I had grown accustomed and immune to, so I proceeded to Union Station plaza right quick.

On my way there I passed the building at the corner of St. John and A streets that is always lit up like a Christmas tree, has no signage and always has one or two suspicious-looking people coming and going from it. This morning, business was brisk, whatever it might be they purvey.

Heading to Dunkin Donuts, I saw a man wobbling behind the Dog Fish café yelling toward the sky at the top of his lungs. I continued up Congress. I am not over-embellishing when I say that every single stoop on the portion of Congress between Valley St and Bramhall Square was occupied by two or three people I wouldn’t be having tea with, and at two buildings, entry was being granted to knockers by the way of a guy cracking the door, peering out, and sizing up the visiting company. On a typical morning, you might see two or three people in this neck of the woods total. Thursday, there were 30 peeps, minimum.

I banged a right on Bramhall St, passing three late-teen/early twenties dudes using an orange construction cone as a megaphone. They had made their way up to Maine Medical Center by the time I had exited the hospital. I saw them approach a doctor outside to smoke a cigarette and as I passed in my rearview saw them dropkick the cone in her direction.

Driving further into the West End I saw people everywhere. There are always a few bar stragglers or wayward addicts out and about, but Thursday they were on every street and around every bend. Arriving at Cumberland Farms, I was greeting by a gaggle of early-twentysomethings in the parking lot. The manager of the store, having recently lost the part-time overnight guy, was manning the store. I walked in and said “The city is nuts tonight!” He agreed, and reminded me of a fact a working guy is wont to forget. It was the first of the month, he said, “checks went out.”

“That’s right!” I remembered right then that a percentage my early morning toil went to subsidize a few nights on the town for the very people I was seeing out. I usually don’t notice that our subsidizing of the criminally inclined underclass in our city has occurred until about the eighth of the month when I try to find a snack cake in the city and can’t; It seems the Hostess guy hasn’t figured out how to capitalize on the welfare state through efficient merchandising.

Having been reminded of why the city was so busy, I had a better understanding of the grand weirdness I was witnessing. Continuing forth on Danforth Street, there were four dudes standing next to a fire hydrant that had been opened and was spewing water.

I crossed the interstate from there and headed out on Forest Ave. I nearly squished a guy laying smack dab in the middle of the parking lot at the 449 Forest Ave Plaza, saw two kids armed with felt-tip writing devices at Woodfords Corner and in my rearview, after having passed a wobbly bike rider saw him then cross in front of a cargo van which came to a complete stop to wait for him to move out of the way. Heading further down Forest, I saw four police cruisers pass me, quickly heading in to town.

The quietest part of the city Thursday morning? Riverton. Not a peep out there, which was weird in of itself.

So that is what was happening while you were sleeping and your tax money was subsidizing “less fortunate” people Thursday morning. I thought you might like to know. It’s time to start thinking about when, not wondering if, what the climate in the city will be like after the collapse of the welfare state. Will a given Thursday at around noon start to more closely resemble this past Thursday at three in the morning? Will these people be better behaved when they’re not getting their Ramen noodles and starving? And most importantly, what steps are you taking now to protect yourselves for the eventuality they will come knocking on the door of a North Deering cape near you?

Seeing Portland slowly deteriorate over the last two years in the early morning has given me time to think about these things. Let’s hope our city leaders give it the same kind of thought.