Portland Mayor Sam Adams has given Occupy Portland a 12:01am Sunday morning deadline to vacate their encampment in downtown Portland. This gives both sides ample time to plan their next move. The two-day warning is not unusual for a city famed for an oversupply of ennui. Portland is not a place given to rushing headlong into the unknown; ideas usually get discussed to death in an (often futile) attempt to create consensus (Not exactly “Baghdad by the Willamette” [apologies to the late Herb Cain], but it’s who we are.) It gives protesters the opportunity to consider their options, and it gives the city a chance to argue credibly that they’re trying to be reasonable. And the city of Portland HAS bent over backwards to be accommodating, especially given the several hundred thousand dollars it’s cost taxpayers for the police overtime required to protect the protesters and preserve order.
The deadline seems a reasonable one. Camping in downtown Portland in mid-November is not a comfortable (nor a particularly safe and healthy) thing to be doing. Still, enough is enough. While Portlanders generally value and appreciate what Occupy Portland is about, I think most of us would argue that we want downtown back. The expense to taxpayers, along with the public health and safety risks, are no longer outweighed by protester’s First Amendment rights. Mayor Adams has been quite deferential to Occupy Portland, but there comes a time when occupation and protest must give way to the next stage- planning, organization, and working within the system to achieve the goals of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Occupy Portland needs to determine how to go about translating the momentum and support they currently enjoy into concrete action designed to satisfy their demands. The status quo can no longer hold.
Enough is enough.
