Got me a new shirt thanks to the efforts of the Peoples Republic of Portlandia!

We’ve invited the folks from Undriving to come to the Sunday, July 24th Portland Sunday Parkways in Downtown/NW Portland. If you’d like to volunteer to help people get their Undriver Licenses™, please get in touch – albertkaufman@gmail.com And, if you’d like to stop by and register for your Undriver License, please do.  They are super-cool and you’ll be the talk of your friends.

On July 24th we’ll be @ the entrance to the Waterfront Park Bowl, as the Sunday Parkways route turns from Columbia onto Naito Parkway. We’ll have two shifts for volunteers: 10:45-1:30 and 1:15-4:00

The volunteering will consist of helping people fill out a form about alternatives to driving they might choose; helping them dress up for their Undriver License photo, and having fun

I first ran into the Undriver License Station™ at the Green Festival in Seattle in 2010.  I stepped up and filled out a short form detailing my willingness to attempt to drive less.  The experience was thought-provoking and has led to me sell my car and share one with my partner.  I’m so convinced that Undriving will be a big hit that I’m volunteering to help organize a visit by the founders of Undriving (Seattle) and their licensing operation.  Please help me spread the word and come get your Undriver License!  Thanks!

To the Editor of the Willamette Week:

I read your review of our state legislators, “The Good, Bad and Awful” and thank you for such an evened take.  I think the article points out the problem I’m seeing with all levels of government, and especially statewide.  We’re not able to handle the problems we’ve got with the system of government we’ve got in place.  On the City and National level we at least have people working for us full-time, but at the state level we ask the impossible and the results are an indication that things aren’t right.  We pay people peanuts to make important decisions infrequently.  This leads to gridlock in budgeting, horse-trading, favoritism, and an uphill battle getting good legislation passed when its opposed by any industry that’s affected.  Want to stop the banning of single-use bags?  Hire 4 lobbyists and that will do the trick.  Want to buy a legislator, that doesn’t seem to be that expensive for the timber industry, for instance.

It’s really high-time we think about changing the current system.  One thought would be to move more in the direction of hiring people to manage our state for us.  I’d rather my taxes go to the best managers and decision-makers out there and from your guide we can see that our money is not buying that – far from it.  We have a complex collection of millions of people, millions of acres, health, education, and land-use decisions.  Leaving this work to a part-time force of people with a wide-variety of ability levels and favors owed seems like the worst way to make important decisions that I can think of.  Some might say, “well, this is our democracy”.  I say, this is not good enough, especially considering the challenges ahead such as climate change.  Our legislature spent an entire session deliberating over a lot of issues and came up with very little.  How will they be at making quicker decisions in the future?  I think it’s time to seriously consider a different system to manage our state, now.

Sincerely, Albert Kaufman