Back last year before her election to the Clackamas Board of Commissioners, Melissa Fireside came under investigation by the Lake Oswego police for pressuring her mom to buy her home and having to get a reverse mortgage to do so.
Some news outlets knew of this criminal investgation before the November 5, 2024 election, but withheld reporting on it until just after the election - an election which saw then incumbent Commissioner Mark Shull lose by just by 3 percentage points to an absolute new comer to elected office (Melissa Fireside).
In the latest revelation, Clackamas District Attorney John Wentworth (Democrat) quickly decided not to pursue the Fireside (D) investigation but punt the case to the Oregon Department of Justice, which is now headed by Democrat partisan Dan Rayfield.
So, will Oregon's Democrat Party leadership give an honest review of the Fireside case?
You have to really wonder after Val Hoyle (Democrat), now Oregon Congresswoman, was thought to have taken bags of cash from a sketchy marijuana company during her campaign; but the Oregon Ethics Commission voted 4 (Democrat) to 4 (Republican) not to pursue the case against Hoyle. And so, Hoyle walks free.
It also is somewhat damning of District Attorney Wentworth (D) to punt the Fireside case to the Oregon Department of Justice, using the excuse that his office is funded by the Clackamas Board of Commissioners and that he didn't want to get on the bad side of Fireside (D).
His excuse doesn't hold water seeing how he had in 2021 endorsed the call for the resignation of then newly elected Commissioner Shull for his unwoke Facebook postings - Shull being a Republican but also would have had the same role in helping fund Wentworth's District Attorney's office as now Fireside does.
Sounds like this year's full Oregon legislature session will likely pass a 35 cent increase in Oregon's tax on gasoline, spread over a few years starting in January 2026. Oregon has the tenth highest state gasoline tax in the nation at 40 cents per gallon currently. Now Oregon's gas tax is likely to be almost doubled
There is also talk of a road mileage fee for high efficiency vehicles.
There is also rumors of an income surcharge on top of Oregon's already high state income tax (7th highest in the U.S).
And there is also talk of a tax on home deliveries. Geez, Shipping costs for home delivery is already high, but now Oregon wants home deliveries even more expensive. Bricks and mortar stores probably will benefit.
Oregon's government is highly dependent on a largesse of federal monies poured into its free healthcare - some of which goes to give free care to illegal residents and in some cases even providing them free housing. I believe the reason Oregon's Democrat controlled government lavishes on providing sanctuary to illegal aliens is that the illegals somehow end up voting in the state's elections - voting for the Democrats who lavish them with free stuff.
Just when there is talk among some Oregon legislators to moderate the rate of increase in electric and natural gas utility bills, Governor Kotek nominates Karin Power to be on the 3-person seat Oregon Public Utility Commission (OPUC).
The OPUC is the state regulator who decides how much PGE (electric) and Northwest Natural (gas) can raise their utility rates.
One of the reasons our utility bills are spiking is that PGE and Northwest Natural are both mandated by the state government to replace their low-cost conventional supplies with so-called "green renewable" supplies - like wind, solar and large utility energy storage batteries (which are more expensive than continuing to rely on existing and new conventional sources).
But such increases in our utility bills are probably just fine with Karin Power, seeing how she is the former chair of the Oregon House committee on the environment and pushed for an almost immediate banning of diesel petroleum fuels for freight shipping trucks - Power's ban would have started this year if it had passed the Oregon legislature.
She also pushes as an Oregon House Chair the Net Zero mandates which are causing a large portion of the sharp increases in our electric bills.
(posted by Elvis Clark on January 19, 2025)
The main reason why judges mostly run unopposed in Oregon is that when judges retire, they do so before their term as judge expires. This gives the Oregon governor the power to choose and appoint a Judge favorable to the governor's politics, replacing the retiring judge.
You have to be a lawyer to run for a Judge position in Oregon. But if you are a lawyer, you're not likely to want to run against an appointed judge - because if you lose, the winning judge may not want to treat you fairly if you happen to have to bring a case before this judge.
Here's Lars Larson's critique of why Oregon's judge elections are most usually "fixed:" Lars Larson: The hidden judge election scheme | The Oregon Catalyst
Most all voters don't know much about the judge(s) on their ballot - I know I don't, and I follow politics a lot. So, it does seem tempting to protest the uncontested contest by writing in "None of the Above."
I wrote the Oregon Secretary of State (e-mail just above) asking what would happen if a majority of voters wrote in for a particular election - such as in a case where a Judge runs for re-election unopposed - the words "None of the Above."
The Oregon Secretary of State's response is just above here.
The Oregon Secretary of State department says that in this case, the majority - who in the case write in "None of the Above" - would have their vote classified as not valid - and the majority would be classified as having undervoted. So, the unopposed Judge is still highly likely to be elected.
(posted by Elvis Clark on May 17, 2024)
Clackamas Republican Party Chair Rick Riley's recorded message about the fatal flaws of Oregon's current mail in ballot election system