UPDATE: Leavitt is not expected to be at the city council meeting this evening, due to being sick. Regardless, the rest of the council will be there and also need to hear your views.
If you are upset over being denied a clear vote on accepting Portland’s financially ailing light rail and the appearance of underhanded tricks to deny you a vote, as recently mentioned in the post The Petition That Refuses To Die, Mayor Tim ‘the liar’ Leavitt and Vancouver City Council needs to hear from you, now.
The city council next meets Monday January 14 at 6:30 PM at city hall and is a night for citizens comments. You don’t need a long eloquent speech to fill the 3-minute limit, just a quick, “I want a vote on light rail.” Quick, simple and easy.
Just fill out a yellow comment card with the same words. The more of you willing to say those words in front of city council, the more they see we are serious and getting fed up being denied a promised vote while be forced to pay for a project most of us do not want. But we need a show of force in numbers of people telling them that we demand a vote. We were promised a vote and haven’t been given one.
The need of numbers was expressed long ago in a cult song, Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie. The lyrics toward the end of his song says,
“You know, if One person, just one person does it they may think he’s really sick and
They won’t take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony,
They may think they’re both faggots and they won’t take either of them.
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in
Singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. They may think it’s an
Organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said
Fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and
Walking out. And friends they may thinks it’s a movement.”
We don’t need to sing a bar of Alice’s Restaurant, though. We just need to let them know we want a vote!
