Free Republic

**SNIP** 1. City officials have long claimed that Portland’s form of government makes it impossible for them to do their jobs well. 2. When the Portland Charter Commission was formed, members settled on their own set of goals. 3. The commission emerged with three proposed reforms. No city in America has tried to achieve all three at the same time. 4. Perhaps the most popular aspect of the proposed reforms is that Portland would be run by a city administrator. 5. The reform measure calls for ranked-choice voting, an unfamiliar and controversial method, to elect city commissioners. 7. Portland voters...

The effort to bring a MLB team to Portland appears to be growing in seriousness, as Gordon Friedman of The Oregonian recently reported. Portland Diamond Project, the entity spearheading the effort, has submitted bids on two parcels that could potentially house 32,000-seat ballparks. Clearly, there’s still a long ways to go before anybody will be watching a major-league contest in Portland, but it’ll certainly be interesting to see whether that municipality (and a few others) end up as serious suitors for existing or expansion franchises.