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Meet the Startup: A conversation with Portland Mayor Sam Adams (Part 1)

Rick Turoczy on June 21, 2011

Every day the City of Portland is hustling to make the business environment here more hospitable to those people who are looking to live and work here. And trying to make it a great place for startups. In that way, Portland is a bit of a startup itself. Trying to build something new—and reinventing the way it does things—to speak to a new target market.

Well, if Portland is a startup, then the guy at the helm of that startup is Portland Mayor Sam Adams. So it seems only appropriate that Meet the Startup spend a few minutes chatting with him.

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That’s part 1. Stay tuned next week for part 2.

And to stay up to date on all of the interviews, follow @MeettheStartup on Twitter.

Published by Rick Turoczy

More than mildly obsessed with the Portland startup community. Founder and editor at Silicon Florist. Cofounder and general manager at PIE. Follow me on Twitter: @turoczy

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  10. G. Buddy Bercu August 4, 2011 at 8:11 am

    I was hoping, Sir, like a President or an emporer of a nation state, you may want to right some of the wrongs so, I can like you as a citizen. So, many of your fellow Portlanders can say, there went Sam Adams, he did alot of good things for Portland. I have an idea. It’s a simple one. Ease up on the Public Safety things..For example, how do you go 25 miles an hour when you are in gear going down that ski slope the green light toward downtown, from the sandpile that used to be Safeway. My girlfriend will end up having to pay for the increase in our car insurance. We need a vehicle sir. We are both disabled. My girlfriend doesn’t drive. We put on maybe 4000 miles a year on our car,and live four blocks from the infraction. You have to ride the break to approach 25 miles an hour down that rollercoaster hill from 25th to 20th. I live on 19th,sir,and I know about reckless driving. But, you can’t go after drivers like spiders go after flies. I may have been going the speed of the flow of traffic, perhaps a little faster. I have never gotten a speeding ticket. I have not had a moving violation of any kind since my girlfriend bought and paid for a car in 2007. This will punish her,with fines we can ill afford. I play street music to fill up my gas tank. We are on a very fixed income,and we pay market rent.Plus, put yourself in my shoes for a moment and I think you would feel as I do, the whole affair isn’t exactly just. The Israelites can’t make bricks without straw. Make it right with the N.E. Give them their diversity. Gangs will not stop selling drugs and prostitutes will not stop picking up johns because we mandate it to cease. Going with the people will always be the right thing to do…I feel it’s difficult for any public figure to find advisors who can be trusted. It’s very hard to lead and to be be Mayor. Potter woudn’t take the job for if they built a statue of him, in Pioneer Square, in his weight in gold. They won’t because he didn’t clean up enough lose ends. You are young, vibrant, and I know you want me to smile when I think of you and like you when I see you somewhere out and about. When I shake your hand, you want a smile on my face. It can happen.I was hoping we could keep the lines of communication open again, on the real side. Because I want to like and respect the good things you have done, and yet still can do for Portland, especially now that you don’t have to concern yourself with re- election. I have so many ideas. I see already a loosening up downtown of the sidewalk management ordinance. Thank you..I have long thought that if Joe Walsh is the extent of our activism, our future freedoms are in big trouble I do, however feel Joe Anybody, Walsh made some painful, though salient points. It’s time to speak from your heart to the people, Sam. It’s your time,and opportunity to quietly restore sanity to the City that Works. I will bypass that part of Hawthorne to get home from now on. I plan on pleading not guilty. I got this ticket in the mail. My court date is the 20 of September. I can’t afford an insurance increase. 13 miles over the speed limit was what they clocked me at, down that ski slope, like I said, I have a bad heart but, I will fight this ticket if it kills me. Don’t make me have to play music in front of city hall to pay for these fines… Portland has always been a kicked back, let your hair down kind of place. I never had a police officer stop me in my vehicle. Even when I went down a one way street the wrong way, the officers were there to say, just turn around. They were cool about it.Mayor Sam. I wonder how many more people got tickets in the mail that evening. Probably a good majority of those they clocked. What a bonanza. Now, I know how those roads are being built..Predatory City government might work for the bottom line, but it’s a pretty nasty way to treat your neighbors. Thank you for your time.. BBA

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