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We got a blizzard of comments on our complaints issue last month (“Kvetchfest 2024,” WW, July 31). Some were constructive and others were bitter, just like the ones we penned.
But does anything get better without a scathing critique? Like our editor in chief, we say no. Thankfully, the latest Kvetchfest—our eighth since 1999—chummed the waters and attracted some creative Stumptown grumps.
The feedback we got was way better than the usually predictable, often bonkers testimony one hears before Multnomah County Board of Commissioners meetings, so we decided to print some of it here. Inspired to piss and moan by your fellow citizens? Drop us a kvetch at kvetch@wweek.com.
RAINPROOF THE PERMITS
My wife and I are small local business owners. The city of Portland charges an annual fee for the advertising A-frames on the sidewalk, which is fine, I guess. But the permit stickers they give you to put on the signs aren’t waterproof. After one day of rain, they disintegrate and are no longer valid. They can fine you as if you didn’t have one at all. A little logic in the bureaucracy would be appreciated.
“Frustrated in Downtown Portland”
MY KINGDOM FOR A BUS SHELTER
This is bus stop 5422 on Southeast Stark near 117th. The metal seat heats up like a branding iron during summer, and the holes retain water for hours after it rains. You cannot sit on this sad excuse for a bench most of the year, unless you want your butt to be soaking wet, or scorched, depending on the season.
I get salty when I see covered bus shelters downtown, or in Burnside’s commercial areas, that are literally 2 feet away from either a giant, shady tree or a shop with an overhang you can duck under when it rains. Sure, give all the nice bus stop structures to Laurelhurst!
WW has reported on the many east county infrastructure woes. There are two unpaved, graveled residential streets within four blocks of this stop. We don’t have sidewalks in our neighborhood. We lack trees or shade along much of Burnside and Stark. Can’t we at least have seats you can sit on and covered bus shelters so I don’t get a sunburn waiting for the damn bus?
Lara P., Mill Park
TURN IT DOWN
The 57th time today I hear the announcement “This is a north-south train to Northwest 23rd Avenue” from a stop two and a half blocks from my apartment. Does it have to be that loud?
Jeff Gehitelman
STOP THE STEAL
Our city’s tipping culture has become absurd. Tipping used to be for exceptional service that went above and beyond; now it’s just a way to guilt people into forking over more cash. And there are no longer clear rules about who’s going to hit you with a tip line. There was a time when tipping was for formal dining; now it could be the tire shop. Especially aggravating is picking up takeout food and facing tip lines that start at 20% and go up. Since when is handing over a bag of food at the counter going above and beyond? That’s just doing your job, give me a break. Build employee costs into prices and stop the madness!
Lota LaMontagne
THEY CAN’T STEAL THE BUS
My car was broken into so many times I gave up and donated it to the Oregon Humane Society. Now I ride public transit.
“Making Ends Meet in Close-In Northeast”
RESTROOM CODES
[Ed.’s note: That was it. Just “restroom codes.” Enough said.]
John K.
LET NATIVE AMERICANS DECIDE
Look, I’m captain of the local take-the-dead-white-guys’-names-off-the-landscape team, but as it happens, we have no idea what the Multnomah called the big mountain east of us. Wy-east/Wy’east may have been made up by a novelist in the late 19th century. It’s entirely possible that we will never know the Multnomah name for the mountain, or whether the other tribes had different names for the mountain in their own languages, because settlers did everything in their power to eradicate those languages.
And that’s just something we, as heirs to that legacy of genocide, have to live with. If it makes you uncomfortable to call Mount Hood by the name of an agent of a rapacious imperial regime, maybe that’s a good thing. In any case, a conversation about renaming the mountain, whether to its “original” name or something entirely new, should include the descendants of the people Hood and his ilk stole the land from, who are still here today.
Ben Waterhouse
PORTLAND NICE ROAD RAGE
For the love of all the gods, get it together, people. Used to be that Portlanders couldn’t manage to merge in traffic, in an annoying but aggressively polite way: “You go.” “No, you go.” “No, you!” I’ve accepted we could be bad at merging and be nice about it, but I can’t abide the lack of turn signals. And, my dear jacked-up truck, Tesla, and BMW drivers, in particular: Your fancy pants do not come with ESP, stop driving like jerks.
S.K.