Lars Larson: Mayor’s sales job to lure people back

By Lars Larson,
NW and national radio host,

The Mayor of Portland is drawing his latest deceptions of the public from a famous Russian.

250 years ago, Grigori Potemkin was Governor General of Russia’s southern provinces.

You still hear references to his name in “Potemkin villages.”

He would build little fake towns, painted in bright colors, and fill them with happy, nicely dressed, well-fed people so visitors would get the impression of flourishing towns.

Portlandia Mayor Feckless Ted Wheeler is trying to do the same thing.

He’s asked businesses located in the Rose City’s toxic downtown to force workers to come back to the office so failing businesses have some customers.

He’s offering significant tax breaks to anyone foolish enough to sink millions into fixing up downtown buildings. Who you can rent that space to is another problem.

He’s even used taxpayer cash to hand out 50-dollar gift cards to lure citizens into a downtown city core polluted with homeless, drug addicts, criminal assaults and filthy streets.

The same Ted Wheeler who voted in favor of defunding police, allowed Antifa to lay siege to the ICE headquarters years ago, then joined rioters on the streets during the BLM riots…has demanded that the Governor hand over one-quarter of all the state troopers in Oregon to police the streets of Portland.

Feckless Ted refuses to call out the Antifa-friendly district attorney who won’t prosecute crimes and fix that problem.

The Mayor apparently thinks that if he can create the image of a healthy, happy community, it will reverse years of deliberate neglect from city hall.

Just call it “Potemkin on the Willamette.”