When Alice arrived at the Mad Tea-Party, the Dormouse was fast asleep; the March Hare and Mad Hatter using it as a cushion. “Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,” thought Alice, “only as it’s asleep, I suppose it doesn’t mind.”

Portland’s interim city manager has just released the costs for 13 referendum and Charter Commission ballot questions, costs that apparently were ignored by their drafters. Portland’s citizens need to wake up and not be used as a cushion, like the Dormouse, by the Democratic Socialists of America and Progressive Portland.

These extremist groups, acting like the Hare and Hatter at one corner of a large table crying, “No room!” when Alice sits down, are saying the same to taxpayers and small businesses concerned with costs. When the March Hare says to Alice, “Have some wine,” Alice notices there isn’t any. Likewise, drafters of these 13 items have offered voters solutions to mostly nonexistent problems.

Claiming transparency, the costs were kept hidden or ignored by the DSA and progressives on the Charter Commission until now: $6.5 million, annually. Lack of common sense and knowledge of economics and tax consequences to renters, property owners and the retired are now evident with their adventures in a politically self-serving wonderland.

Voters, don’t be a Dormouse asleep. Please think of cost burdens to all citizens when casting your votes.

Robert Kahn
Portland

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