Donoghue for City Council, District 1
Incumbent Will Gorham is a hard worker, and Kirk Goodhue has good ideas about improving public transportation, but Kevin Donoghue far and away has the vision, the aptitude, and the dedication needed to direct the city’s efforts to attract and retain young people. Donoghue, 27, would be the youngest councilor by more than a decade, the only renter, the only councilor without a car, and a real-deal representative of Portland’s future. For more than a year, Donoghue has watched dozens of city council, subcommittee, and planning board meetings. A graduate of the community planning program at USM’s Muskie School of Public Service, Donoghue hopes to improve public transit, alter zoning codes to allow more affordable housing, and protect local business. It’s time to bring Donoghue, and all his good ideas, off the sidelines and into the game.
Hagge for City Council, District 2
Michael Patterson, president of the Parkside Neighborhood Association and member of the city’s planning board, clearly is connected to both grassroots and policy issues in Portland. Dave Marshall is a working artist who could lobby for the creative economy. But Cyrus Hagge’s planning experience, his more than four decades as a resident of Portland, and his thoughtful ideas about realistic growth for the city will make him the strongest advocate for District 2. Hagge, 53, owns a property management company in Portland, served on the Portland planning board for 12 years, and is chairman of the YMCA board of directors. He will serve as a middle-of-the-road anchor for some of our more free-wheeling councilors.
No on 1
The first question on the ballot, popularly called the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR, is an ill-conceived idea that would hamstring government’s flexibility to innovate without offering a much-needed significant reduction in the state’s tax burden. While a spending-control measure is likely the best way to stop state and local governments from needing to raise taxes repeatedly, this measure would excessively bind local governments, who are among the most responsive and accountable public agencies, while providing no actual control over spending at the state-government level, where the real problems lie. But make sure, when you vote against TABOR, to call your legislators to explain that you want tax reform, just not this way; otherwise, they will interpret your vote as saying “everything’s fine.”
Yes on 2
The little-noticed second referendum question is a shoo-in, a clarification of how the state Constitution and existing state laws handle citizens’ petition efforts. In the past, the Constitution and the law set out conflicting — though not directly contradictory — timelines for when and for how long petitions can be circulated, and for how long a voter’s signature can be considered valid when certifying that enough people have signed a petition to get its question on the ballot. This question seeks to clarify the timelines such that everyone — from government agencies tasked with approving the questions and validating voters’ signatures, to petition circulators, to those who sign the petitions — knows what the rules are.
