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Our readers enjoy picking sides, so it is not surprising they reacted strongly to news of Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson moving west across the Willamette River. A politician’s change of address isn’t often interesting, but gritty East Portland was a character in Vega Pederson’s political story. (Her bio page on the Multnomah County website still calls her “a proud resident of East Portland for nearly two decades.”) So her departure for a rental home in the Southwest Hills, first reported by Anthony Effinger last week on wweek.com, carried extra resonance. Here’s what our readers had to say:
Zbignew, via wweek.com: “Bet they really wanted to move to Washington County but the optics wouldn’t have been good.”
foampadnumberonefan, via Reddit: “I mean, out of all the very legitimate things to be upset with her about, I can’t really GAF about her selling her house and moving to a nicer neighborhood. We all love our zingers/gotchas, but meh.”
Aesir_Auditor, in response: “Nah. She deserves flames for this.
“If you wanna say you’re about that life, be about that life. Don’t talk about it, be about it.
“You can’t claim to love the area, feel deep compassion for it, then at the first available opportunity jump ship and move closer to the locus of power. It becomes clearer with everyday that JVP views this as a springboard into greater arenas of power. As someone from the area, I’m getting a bit tired of all the people who show fake love for the plights out here just to score social justice points and up their ‘street cred.’
“Despite my disagreements with her on policy, it was nice to finally have someone with real access to power live in an area that hasn’t had that, really ever. It presents unique opportunities to draw people into the area who wouldn’t naturally come out here, and quite frankly behind closed doors denigrate the area. She unfortunately didn’t do such a thing, and now the reason why has become apparent. She never truly cared about this, she cared about the ladder.”
Jack Bogdanski, via Twitter: “Two more years, and then she’s off to Schmidtland.”
Christina, via wweek.com: “She is such a joke. The worst ever. And, as an outer East Portlander, we’re going to be ignored even more.
“Of course, anyone can move anywhere they want, but this sends a strong message that she’s no longer engaged in the community that supported her and elected her, and literally ran for the hills.”
AverageAmbition, via Reddit: “Oh my god, who the hell cares. The amount of people that express a written critical view of people living on the west side of the river, as if it’s an indictment against their real Portland citizen bona fides, is just insanity to me. Article says she and her husband have got about $1.2 million in property value across two properties. They’re trying to sell it and have started renting a place with $1.2 million property value. What an absolute non-story.”
No_Instruction_8451, via Reddit: “Have YOU tried finding ingredients for canapés in Hazelwood? It’s impossible.”
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