As a Politician, Tina Kotek is Completely Out of Touch with Reality.

If Kotek Wins the race for Oregon Governor, she will be an Unmitigated Disaster for the City of Portland because of her radicalism and her blatant and dangerous anti-police sentiment.

As a woman who for most of my life considered herself a moral and liberal Portland Democrat, I’ve had to completely rethink my politics for a variety of reasons. It’s not simply because I’m older now and people supposedly become more “conservative” with age, but because current liberal politics in Portland are simply untenable. They don’t work and Portlanders are suffering for it. I know this and so do thousands of others. In a nutshell, the main reason my politics have changed is because of what happened during 2020.

Our nation was irrevocably changed in 2020 when we all witnessed the callous, and horrifying murder (by slow death torture) of troubled George Floyd at the hands of the corrupt and jaded police officer, Derek Chauvin of Minnesota. Overnight the protests, degenerated into violent riots and destroyed city after city in America, costing mostly communities of color millions of dollars as rioters looted their own communities dry, at a total cost nationwide, of over a whopping two billion dollars.

Residents came to bitterly regret their neighbors had destroyed so many community businesses, often black owned, during the violent hysteria that many folks repeatedly claimed were only “peaceful protests.” Sometimes they even made their feelings known, as in the above linked video of a black woman admonishing “peaceful protesters” from destroying her neighborhood in the name of Black Lives Matter.

Because months later, all of a sudden, those same communities were hollow shells, minus hardware stores, shoe stores, convenience stores, fast food restaurants and small cafes that had formerly existed and were now burnt to the ground. Those folks would have to face the reality that their own neighbors looting had destroyed their communities, and that those communities will be feeling the economic repercussions of that looting for years to come.

In 2020, overnight it seemed, a dangerous stereotype was also being peddled across the land, by the liberal media and radicalized “social justice warriors” who rarely consider the role of history, documented facts or the bigger picture. The slanted message they were sending was that ALL police officers in our country were… just like Derek Chauvin.

“ACAB” and “Fuck the Police” became the popular chant of the day.

And people were believing the lie.

Including big city politicians who should have known better. Given that most police officers, more than 73 percent never fire their weapon in their entire careers, and that most people know this, those many politicians should have known that common knowledge fact, too. But they didn’t seem to, and they jumped along for the ride, riding the wave of anti-police sentiment, irrespective of all the data that proves most people killed by police are white, not black and that the millions of police interactions each month in America, with civilians, are indeed successful.

In only a few months, police budgets were being slashed. Activists, both black and white were claiming that police should be “abolished” and that prison’s should be “abolished.” But how could that ever work? Under any circumstances? To suggest such radical change is absurd. No country in the world is without a police force and prisons for innumerable and important reasons and this fact goes back to ancient Roman times.

Prisons and police will never be abolished. Ever.

Critics of police, such as a California DA were stating that it was okay if people looted, because what if they were “poor” and what if they “needed” what they were stealing? Shouldn’t they be allowed to do just that? Steal and loot? But did those looters really need stereos, TVs, Nike shoes, or jewelry just to survive? And when did burglary and robbery suddenly become legal, rather than a crime?

During 2020, before police budgets were slashed, activists and powerful politicians were making countless feel-good idealistic statements. They were saying that if cities had enough “social programs,” for example, help with employment, food insecurity and education, then crime would suddenly and mysteriously just disappear and a Utopia would quickly arise to take its place.

We all know how that movement worked out though, don’t we?

We have all learned that the Defund the Police Fantasy was nothing more complex than a failed social experiment conducted and approved of by fools. It was a dangerously risky experiment riding on the heady wings of cultural and social hysteria, blind uninformed hope, and foolish political leadership, by people with no background in law enforcement, criminology, or police science of any kind.

People who should never have made such rash, unwise and hasty decisions.

Proof and evidence that the movement failed is everywhere, including in an excellent analysis written by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report. The Defund the Police craze swept the country, with the same misguided fervor that the Free Love movement swept the 1960s, cutting its own wide swath of destroyed lives due to the rampant drug culture that the sixties created and passed on.

Too many US politicians failed to rigorously analyze or assess what the risk factors would be if they slashed police budgets, and fired various gun violence reduction teams. They didn’t look to the past, in America, when in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, police budgets were also slashed and crime surged, resulting in violence and rampant murder. American politicians rarely think things through and invariably they never look to the past for answers.

The chaos, destruction and looting was seen everywhere as a result of the 2020 unrest. And Portland was certainly not immune. Portland became one of the epicenters for mindless violence and destruction, and residents saw public safety disappear in only a matter of a few short months. The end result became millions of dollars worth of damage, murder and even stabbings, including the stabbing of a black man by a white man who was screaming the Black Lives Matter chant, while holding the knife.

In early June of 2020, when Mayor Ted Wheeler struggled to figure out what to do, to quell the violence, he asked Governor Kate Brown, on “three or four” occasions to give Portland police assistance by the Oregon National Guard in an effort to restore order during the downtown riots.

Kate Brown refused.

Wheeler’s reasoning was sound. The National Guard would “help protect facilities in the city” which could free up PPB for “crowd management.” Despite violent rioters attacking recognized media reporters and journalists, and first responders, Kate Brown was unmoved.

This was how much Kate Brown cared about Portland, Oregon!

Later, when Portland Police were working double shifts, exhausted and overworked, when their police precincts were being fire bombed by radical “Antifa” militants, and officers were being targeted with green light lasers, in an effort to blind them, and hit with projectiles and even Molotov Cocktails, politicians like Kate Brown continued to turn a blind eye. The Portland riots were not impacting her, or her well maintained safety and comfort zone.

Someone else turned a blind eye, too. TINA KOTEK.

The once brunette Tina, now a bleach blond, (her dark roots visible in photographs) wants us to trust that she is smart enough, straight forward enough and honest enough to be Governor of the state of Oregon.

I don’t believe her.

For one very important reason. TINA KOTEK IS ANTI-POLICE.

Moreover, she does NOT comprehend what public safety is, how to achieve it or how to maintain it. Kotek has made it abundantly clear that she is only too willing to demonize police, throw them under the proverbial bus and find fault with anything and everything they do, while pretending she is the next White Savior, come to protect all the little people in Oregon.

Kotek wants Portlanders and Oregonians to vote for her so she can become Oregon’s next Governor. But why should we? Is she listening to what Portlanders and Oregonians are saying? That CRIME is their top priority, and concern, or is she merely pushing her own agenda in the hopes that she will win a very lucrative position, that of the Governor, with it’s high pay and all of its many perks?

Why does she want to be the Governor, anyway? To save Oregon and Portland, or just to enjoy the luxury of a high paying profession where she enjoys unlimited power, and influence?

Back on June 30th of 2020, when a Portland Police building was being fire bombed by violent, dangerous “Antifa” militants, Kotek had this to say, posting on her social media.

“What needed to be protected last night? An empty office building? Was this need more important than the health of neighbors, of children in a neighborhood, of people returning home from work?” Kotek wrote that on her Facebook and other social media.

What Tina didn’t know, and didn’t care enough to find out was that there were several human beings inside that building when it was fire bombed and the police were forced to use tear gas in an effort to defend themselves.

The president of the Portland Police Association, Daryl Turner and two other law enforcement personal were all inside the building when they saw rioters throwing baseball size rocks, frozen water bottles, and fireworks at police, including Molotov Cocktails. Turner said he’d gone to the office to retrieve some needed files, and equipment when he heard that rioters were headed to the building.

In a written statement to Tina, Turner wrote: “Were you aware that two PPA officials, including myself, were in the office that evening? Our personal safety is important. Were you aware that the PPA office is situated next to a number of small businesses owned or operated by people of color? Their lives and their livelihoods are important. Were you aware that the PPA office is also surrounded by homes and diverse residents? Their lives and their homes are important.”

Kotek never responded, admitted her error in judgement, or apologized to Turner.

At a time when Portland is reeling under the free-for-all violence that has consumed Portland since 2020, with 92 murders occurring in 2021 alone, and the rampant drug use that the ill fated Measure 110 created, with no apparent drug treatment being offered to addicts, our city is falling apart from the inside out.

When Kotek says that increased “gun control” and “gun legislation” is going to curb gun violence, she illustrates how woefully naive, and ignorant she really is. Gun control laws do literally nothing to curb gun violence.

Kotek has stated: “I am the only gubernatorial candidate who has stood up to the gun lobby and championed gun violence prevention measures. As House Speaker, I expanded background checks for gun purchases, required guns be stored safely to prevent fatal incidents in the home, especially with children, and passed a red flag law that prevents individuals from accessing a gun if they are a danger to themselves or others.”

At no time does Kotek address how gun violence will be curbed by trained law enforcement officers, neither does she suggest if that is even a necessary component to restoring public safety. Rather Kotek states: “I have also led an initiative to seek federal funds for evidence-based violence prevention programs that will reduce violent retaliation in our communities.”

What does that mean? Does she even know what it means, or is it just more word salad, offered up to placate an anxious public, concerned about the nonstop murders in Portland, Oregon? Kotek appears to be unaware how police work to make communities safe, and keep illegally owned guns off the streets and out of homes. Kotek does not speak favorably of police and in fact demonstrates how anti-police she is at every turn.

The only way to effectively curb gun violence and Portland’s rampant murder is to have a fully staffed and functional police department, including those units like the Gun Violence Reduction Team that investigate illegal gun possession and then seize illegally owned guns used in Gang violence from such people as those in the longstanding and very dangerous Hoover Gang.

These are not things Kotek talks about, or takes seriously.

Portland residents know what the main issues are—the rampant homeless Meth addicted criminals, mostly from out of state, wandering the streets, hallucinating, who are randomly assaulting and robbing working people, dealing drugs, and stealing. We don’t need a Governor who is only interested in protecting and catering to offenders, we need leaders who will protect and support citizens at large, who make up the workers who keep Portland running.

We need a candidate who is up to speed on complex issues like street prostitution, which is happening under our noses in wet disease infested tents, with “houseless” pimps, (mostly men from out of state with long criminal records) prostituting teenage Portland girls and boys.

What the city of Portland needs is MORE police and city funding to either incarcerate these offenders, or get them drug treatment. One or the other.

CRIME is what Portlanders are concerned about. Not more gun control laws and gun legislation that will have exactly zero impact on gun violence in this city.

It is CRIME that Portlanders want addressed!

I will NOT be voting for Tina Kotek. I will vote for whichever other candidate stands the better chance of winning. Whether that is Betsy Johnson or Christine Drazan remains to be seen, but I will NOT vote for another radical Democrat who is woefully ignorant of the very important role law enforcement has in public safety and citizen survival.

I ask all other Portlanders to reconsider your vote. Do you want public safety to be more than just a pipe dream, with more than just empty-promise, word-salad about how “social services” will solve all the woes of the world?

Do you see the value of police in every society the globe over? Do you see how it is all a process, all interconnected? How you cannot have one without the other? Of course social services are needed, no intelligent person would ever dispute that documented fact. But a working and operational policing system is also needed.

Empirical research proves when police departments are fully supported, funded and operational, crime does go down in all communities, both in affluent and in lower status communities.

The last two years have been hellish for Portlanders. Working people, folks who are not rich, but making mortgage payments and caring for children and the elderly have had violent, criminal drug addicts invade their homes and steal from them.

They’ve been assaulted, harassed and threatened, including the elderly living in over 55 communities, by homeless drug addicts living in tents and filthy rundown RV’s. The addicts have threatened them, stating they will: “Burn your house down if you call the police!” Working and retired Portlanders have had their cars vandalized, their catalytic converters stolen, their children’s bikes stolen, lawn ornaments or anything else that is not screwed or bolted down, stolen, so the addicts can sell them for more drugs. As one Portland man stated: “At some point your compassion runs out, you don’t have any anymore!”

We need to go BACK to tried and true methods of creating and maintaining public safety with the Portland Police Bureau acting as the guiding force behind that process. Murder, rape and assaults were not rampant back in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

But they are now, in 2022!

Portlanders and politicians need to learn from the mistakes of 2020 and the Defund the Police debacle, and the firing of the GVRT and how it contributed to the situation we currently find ourselves in. We need to go back to methods that have been proven to work.

Think carefully before you vote for the next Oregon Governor. And do NOT vote for Tina Kotek. She is NOT what Oregon needs. We do NOT need another anti-police politician, who will put Portlanders at risk with anti-police sentiment and the unreasonable, biased and irrational police hatred that goes with it.

Oregon needs sane leadership, intelligent leadership, leadership that recognizes how important police officers are in every nation the world over, and particularly in Portland, Oregon, our City of Roses.

~Theresa Griffin Kennedy

UPDATE: October 12th, 2022. Today I received several messages from a political insider. Rather than try to articulate that she meant or was trying to convey, I’m just going to include her messages to me right here, but they include some very disturbing accusations of corruption and immorality on the part of Tina Kotek.

“On Tina Kotek: I first paid attention to her in 2017, and 2018, when we were trying to make Laurelhurst a historic district.  Kotek wrote a bill to block the creation of new historic districts, specifically to block us, and testified that historic preservation was racist and we were racists. (I am an Asian woman!) All the house committees waved the bill through, because whatever Tina wanted she got. Senator Lew Fredrick, one of the few black legislators in Oregon, killed the bill in the Senate.

Then she pushed through HB 2001, which eliminated single family zoning through Oregon, overriding all local city planning.  This is to help her developer donors, who want to demolish older cheaper houses to build high priced duplexes and fourplexes, which always cost more (to buy or rent) than the house they destroy and then replace.  Basically the same as Portland's Residential Infill Project (RIP). RIP was running into public opposition, so Tina's developer friends got her to shortcut the city and impose RIP statewide.  Lots of people will lose their smaller affordable rental houses because of this happening.

The next thing she did was statewide rent control, which was basically a screw-you to renters. It exempts all units less than 15-years-old, which her developer friends wanted so that their new buildings would have no rent control (see a pattern?).  For older units, the rent increase limit is CPI plus 7%, which is outrageous (this year, that means +14% increases are ok).  There are a raft of exceptions, mostly geared to developers. And cities are prohibited from enacting their own rent control that might be more protective of tenants.  She brags about how she's on the renters' side but actually she sold them down the river and they don’t even know it. 

Whenever campaign finance reform threatens her big money donations, she has found a way to derail that, too.  She only finally pretended to support campaign finance reform last month, to buy off the Green Party candidate (see the OPD story).

She got Shemia Fagan, another piece of work, elected to Secretary of State in place of Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who had way more popular support and qualifications, but isn't part of the “Portland Democrat Mafia” that Tina runs. Later, Shemia repaid the favor by kicking Nick Kristoff off the ballot, to give Tina a clear run to the nomination.

So that's some of what Tina Kotek has done, and why I consider her a corrupt bully and power monger. Here's what she has not done, despite being the most powerful person in Salem for a long time, and able to get practically any bill through the House:

She has not increased our mental health or drug addiction resources, added more psych or detox beds, given families or police the legal tools to compel sick people to be treated.  That's a lot of why Portland is the mess that it is right now. She did not campaign against Measure 110, in fact I think she supported it. Another reason why Portland is a mess.

She did not get reasonable, well-designed gun control in place, which is why we have Measure 114 now, which is not horrible, but has a lot of problems, partly because the authors don't know anything about the legitimate shooting sports. Basically, think of the big things that Portland and Oregon needed to get done in the last several years, and Tina didn't do any of them, and in most cases she didn't even try.

So I think she is a piece of shit.  

It also blows my mind to see her canvassing with JoAnn Hardesty.  Tina's people have to know how unpopular Hardesty is, so this suggests Tina doesn't have enough ground game support and needs Hardesty's help. Pathetic since she represents a Portland district - although she's done nothing to help poor St John's.

The main thing Kotek leads with is reproductive rights and trying to scare women into thinking they’ll lose those protections. But those are not at risk in Oregon and won't be regardless of who the next governor is. That's because House and Senate districts were heavily gerrymandered in 2021.  Dems are guaranteed a large majority.

You really should read the rent control bill SB608 (2019), the no-more-single-family zoning bill HB2001 (2019) and its follow-on SB458 (2021). HB2007 (2017) is just a footnote to history now, because it was killed.

I and others put so many hours - hundreds and hundreds of hours - into trying to stop some of the stuff she pushed through. Now, I see people moaning about rent hikes and where are the cheap old small rental houses? . . . And sadly, they have no idea what happened.”