About James Macdonald

At James Macdonald for Mayor, we are proud to introduce you to, James Macdonald, who is running for Mayor of Portland Oregon, His love for our city and compassion for the people who live here is amazing. He is always willing to help others in need while listening to their concerns. What inspired James to run for Mayor is his deep-rooted desire for change in our community drives his passion for public service. He has watched our community struggle to find itself. The most recent 4 years America has seen things hit their lives forever changing who we are on a national level and most importantly here locally our city of Portland. He has always been active donating his time to help others in need. The first change was the pandemic. No one knew what to expect what was going to happen to them as our media had ideas and opinions which scared everyone into submission and being alone. While the first year of the pandemic reared it's ugly head James made a promise to himself for one year to help one person a day and he did. He went out of his way all the time, One day he found a woman on the street beat up and took her to his personal doctor which his doctor did not see the woman but offered James a pamphlet not much help. So James found the woman a place to stay and be safe. Then the protests which became a breading ground for some people to rip apart our city. Our mayor forgot he was a leader and was protesting on the streets with the crowds which did not go well. This continued for hundreds of days as our police department and mayor had ideas who the culprits were, it was about only 100 people but seemed to act on a different path. We had some of our leaders push to defund the police. Then the supply chain crisis to the places we shop the very things that we need to buy to survive. Our secretary of transportation was on paternity leave. Our biggest disaster is still wrecking lives and displacing people with little or no money. James was born here and has watched Portland change sometimes for the good and sometimes to the bad. We have only had a few outstanding mayors in our history, Tom McCall which the bottle bill was introduced here and then went national. Mayor Vera Katz knew who she was and saw the future. She was born in Dusseldorf Germany but made Portland home. She made everyone around her feel like they belonged to our community. James only stood up to her a few times, once it occurred in a parade. Her people walking with her were carrying signs for a 3 1/2% sales tax James had a float in the parade which was right behind the people carrying the signs. The children that filled his float kids chanting no sales tax as the mayors handlers came back to James and told him to shut up, he said NO as the  kids chanted no sales tax tossing out candy and pogs. The theme that year of the parade was " Children are our Future".  James ran into Ron Wyden about a decade ago in Clackamas Town Center. James stopped and asked him one question. James used to have high hopes for Ron in his past back when he took charge and helped seniors. James started losing faith in him as in 2008 as the financial world fell apart the only thing Ron did was say he was going to start a commission into why gas prices are so high as I recall. Okay here is the question James asked him, "What are you going to do about the decay of the moral fiber in America? At some point he will tell you what Ron said! James has children who are successful in our community he has taken into his home over the years children within the DHS system and those who were not. A few years ago he took on a school district about bullying they ended up replacing the Superintendent and 3 principles this is a long story which I wish he had time to tell. As James sees it we only have the same old leaders running for office of Mayor, he has decided it is time for new people to lead as the old ones put us here. James sees our biggest problems we face in our community and other communities in other cities all over the USA are Homelessness, Crime, Hungry citizens, inflation, a broken healthcare system cost of living and how we used to be in Portland. These are of most important to him there are other problems we can fix. In our past we were always number 1 , 2 , or 3 in voting as the most livable city in the Usa. We were also nominated all the time as the friendliest city. Last year we were voted number 22 on some charts. Living on the streets is not living it is surviving.

On a personal note James loves music. When his children were in school he was involved with students learning music. Each year he would help the kids that wanted to form a rock band he would teach them how to play instruments, guitar, bass guitar, drums, and vocals. At the end of the year the ones in the band would put on a concert for the schools last day. He also had a program where each student at the school could enter to sing there favorite song the competition was called SING- A- THON. There were 3 independent judges that would choose 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th place. All the children that participated receive a gift and the top kids would receive a trophy These events were fun and parents got involved; James also helped coach baseball, football and other sports. He always tried to include all kids to everything. In his spare time he was a foster parent to many children always teaching the children good values. There is so much more than can be listed here but not enough space or time. James hopes that he get's enough information out to you the voters as he is running his campaign with his own money. He had the chance to get city money to fund it but choose not to spend citizens money on himself. We have others running for mayor using your money and bad policy to get elected. James heard about the initiative or bill to start fining homeless people for camping outdoors a 100 dollar fine or a week in jail. James thinks that is what your past local government does attack the weakest into submission. Our city and county first has to make many campsites indoor housing and shelters first and foremost, then move the people stuck on our streets. If James had the power these sites and building would be established in one week. Then he would start a formal move of people to these designated places and stop wasting the time of people in government, volunteers and our money . Crime in our city is out of control we need to start enforcing the laws we have. Tagging in Portland's past they had a task force assigned to figuring out who is doing the tagging then they would administer fines and penalties. Our city cleaned up walls along our freeway making no plans after that. The taggers returned the next day. Our housing authority which controls low cost housing supplements and section 8 needs an overhaul it is not working for the people who really need it. We also need to give it more funds after we fix it the 2 year waiting lines and time wait are a joke. James hopes you the voter are listening times are hard, he remembers the last time inflation ripped up lives in the late 70s until 1981 and a new leader took the stage. James always believes he finds the good in people, but our local and national government is not listening. Our Social Security Administration puts out real numbers our media tells us a different story. In a perfect world the median household income is about 70,000 thousand dollars a year. That means anyone in a house age 15 and up will be included in the total income of that house no limit of how many people. The numbers from SSA as of this year rose in percentage to 51% of workers an individual earns 30,000 thousand dollars a year and LESS meaning down to ZERO. The federal poverty line was raised for a family to 31,200 dollars a year. That means half our nations citizens live in poverty. Our economy is close to a recession I hope it does not happen as Inflation is still wreaking lives daily and could have been prevented.  Thank you for listening. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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