Angelita Morillo Picks a Fight
The DSA is pro-union, with one notable exception.
Two weeks ago, I asked the question:
in which I discussed the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) report, Chief Bob Day’s confirmation, and Councilors Sameer Kanal and Angelita Morillo poking at the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) through offhand comments and Kanal’s proposed changes to the police union accountability agreement.
The council meeting was covered by our beloved Portland Mercury1 in “Will Portland Police Cooperate with Trump’s FBI?” The answer still seems to be no, but at this point the Mercury is little more than a press arm for the DSA which also presents “Sandwich Week.”
A neighbor recently asked me if I actually believed Sameer Kanal was anti-cop. My reply was “wait and see over the next few weeks.” It took less than 48 hours.
Sophie Peel covered the issue for Willamette Week with the details intact. Something you won’t be seeing from the Mercury or Councilor Morillo.
Kanal’s “small proposal” was an ask to reopen a closed union negotiation. My most charitable read is that it was foolish. Nothing requires the union to agree to this conversation and they don’t stand to benefit from doing so. The DSA members know this and would not ask any other union to do the same. My honest read is that it was a provocation, and a threat.
Before we continue, let me be clear: I am union neutral and public union skeptical. What unions and employers negotiate is their business. However, once you’ve negotiated a deal, that’s the deal. First to break it (or try to) loses my respect and support.
On police: they exist and likely will continue to do so. Currently, the best system we have on offer is (to quote Councilor Kanal) “constitutional, equitable, accountable policing.” If you want to present a better option, I’m all ears. Until then, I will support a Portland Police Bureau that is constantly evolving, but never without scrutiny.
If you believe in police accountability, you cannot logically support police abolition. If the police truly are corrupt, unaccountable, murderous, slave-catchers - they will always be able to point to your true motivation in order to undercut any criticism of their actions.
“They want us gone, and they will tell whatever lies they need to bring that about.”
Enter District 3 City Councilor Angelita Morillo.
Making Threats
I’m going to give you my analysis based on the facts and observable behavior of parties involved. Remember, as always, how much I love being proven correct.
On March 9th, 2025, Morillo posted this video on her official City Council Instagram account:
This was more explicit than previous threats. By “sending police” to public town halls that Kanal and Morillo are attending, PPB is making these councilors, who are the most “concerned with police accountability” uncomfortable. But remember that it’s budget time, and now Morillo is reminding them:
Every dime counts when we have a $93 million deficit. I will be counting every dime.
-District 3 Councilor Angelita Morillo
Read: Leave us alone or we will cut your budget. We control the purse and if you fuck with us, we can fuck with you right back.
Councilor Mitch Green was quick to post his support on Bluesky while Vice President Tiffany Koyama-Lane maintained her typical cautious distance until this week. It’s largely empty fluff:
For our purposes, Angelita Morillo is now a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). I don’t know if she pays dues and I don’t care. As their once-and-future chair Olivia Katbi said:
The DSA bloc are signaling their intent to fight the police union and probably the bureau. Hanging in the air is the threat of budget cuts, which will translate to layoffs, just as Portland is starting to regain her footing.
Here’s the Oregonian’s “A Portland councilor tangled with police. Uniformed cops descended on his town hall.”
So dramatic, these cops. Descended? My goodness.
In a statement, Schmautz, the police union president, said that the Police Bureau “has, for as long as I can remember, sent representatives to as many posted community events as possible.”
“Every conversation I have with community all over the city indicates that connection is what community is hungry for,” he said. “I also recognize that different elected officials may wish to hold meetings in different formats and we will always be responsive to that as we grow together in this new form of government.”
I will be entirely uncharitable in the following video. Our DSA councilors are liars and their friends are liars. They want police gone without a better option. They will, as my hypothetical evil cop above said, “tell whatever lies they need to bring that about.”
They are moving for a reduction in the PPB budget. The union is pushing back. You know, the thing that unions do.
I don’t support, I demand police accountability. These clowns cannot forward that cause, precisely because their “secret” motivation is to completely dismantle the bureau. They’re saying it out loud and counting on a significant portion of voters to never hear it because they aren’t on TikTok/X/Bluesky.
If this describes you, good job. I will sacrifice my mental health so that you can live another day in the warm light of reality. When you build my statue, put him close to Abe.
Pay attention over the coming weeks. They will move on the PPB budget if they haven’t already overplayed their hand.
Those Motherfuckers in Laurelhurst
I attended this week’s Laurelhurst Neighborhood Association meeting, where dear Councilor Morillo was the guest speaker. It wasn’t the most hostile room, but not exactly friendly.
A little bit of that hostility was probably me sending out the clip of Morillo calling Laurelhurst residents “motherfuckers” and mocking them for complaining about theft of catalytic converters. The clips are featured in my video above.
I want people to know who they’re talking to. Cards on the table. If you can find clips of me making fun of potential voters, you should definitely publish them.
Morillo is quite charming in her way. She’s become good with crowds, quick with a joke, and handled most of the softball questions deftly. She did have a habit of mentioning how white the audience was. Not a great strategy in my opinion, but I’m not the one voters elected.
She claimed the key issues Portlanders brought her were high rents, housing and homelessness issues, wanting “The Old Portland” back, and government accessibility.
When asked about the budget, she called the gap “quite dire” but made sure to tell the crowd $28 million of it is because of Mayor Keith Wilson’s shelter proposal. It felt pointed. I think our boy Keith is going to have trouble with the DSA crew.
A summary of the meeting was published by
.
The meeting went mostly without incident until Morillo was asked about using the Portland Clean Energy Fund (PCEF) to help with the budget shortfall. You can read more about the argument in favor of this in The Oregonian’s “Portland eyes tapping flush clean energy fund, again, as budget shortfall looms.”
The ideas to use it to pay for core city services expose a fundamental tension in Portland’s budgeting: While the city is flush with restricted money dedicated for new programs and initiatives, it is struggling to maintain basic municipal operations such as roads, parks and public safety.
Local nonprofit officials said they fear a replay of last year when city leaders swooped in to claim a portion of the clean energy fund’s surplus to plug budget holes on the backs of the residents who were to benefit most from the fund.
Zimmerman, chair of the council’s new and powerful Finance Committee, said the clean energy fund “remains an island to themselves by holding that much money.”
“In my career, I’ve never seen a contingency fund that big at a municipal level,” he told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
There are many strong reasons to support this strategy which I will cover another time. I think the Oregonian article is a bit stacked in favor of the critics. Angelita is firmly in that camp.
She claimed that the Clean Energy fund is for BIPOC Communities, again pointed out how white the room was, and the short argument that ensued was shut down by the interviewer.
It was a small conflict that showcased her greatest weakness. Her apparent belief that Portlanders are motivated by racist animus (white supremacy) and that many people who disagree with her are at least a little racist for doing so. Her side of an argument is morally correct and merely attempting to undo generations of white supremacist governance.
I first mentioned Angelita Morillo’s habit of race-baiting back in:
Portland does have a legitimate history of systemic racism - all cities do, but we have seen the failures of recent “progressive antiracist” policy. The city is not a better place to be black than it was ten years ago. It’s not a better place to be any identity category of person.
Morillo’s mentor, Jo Ann Hardesty may have been treated unfairly by the former police union president. She may have lost her re-election bid in part because of racism… but she was running for re-election. Portlanders elected her once, by a healthy margin. That was 2018. Before the attempt to defund the police. Before the riots, the spike in violent crime, or any of the other chaos that followed the pandemic. Hard to imagine that in four years Portlanders got more racist.
Also, the PCEF isn’t “for BIPOC” communities. Another little fib… or maybe just a misunderstanding…
Who knows with Angelita Morillo? I don’t see her making it through the 2026 election at this pace, and not because of her country of origin or the color of her skin. She’s quite charming 90% of the time. She’ll likely lose the election because of the things she says in the other 10%.
Great for birdcage liner, papier-mâché, fire starting, and drying out wet running shoes.
Very interesting coverage of our city councillors.
I had no idea the Portland Clean Energy Fund had grown to such excess. Of course it has. We keep doing this. Pass yet another restricted tax that people feel good about supporting but don’t put the administration and oversight in place to actually produce the outcomes we voted for. It is so utterly dysfunctional. Tax payers are willing to pay taxes for the environment, to solve the homeless crisis, to fund the Arts for our children, to pay for our Parks, our libraries, and our pre schools. And yet we find there is no money for basic services, which logically should have so much money available with all of these other things no longer needing our general fund.
It’s City Council’s job to solve this. We need leadership, and above all pragmatism. Figure out a way to clean up the revenue streams and get them into one bucket, and use it to provide the city services that the people need.
Re: " I don’t see her making it through the 2026 election at this pace..." Hate to say it, but all she has to do in the radical-engineered voting scheme is get 25 percent of the vote. She'll get it just on name-recognition, courtesy of an opaque computer algorithm.
Among the many lies by the Charter Commission was that the new council elections would be "non-partisan." Four socialists puts the lie to that...but this is a typical progressive con: Vote for the dream, wake up to the nightmare.
When you embed minority government, with absolutely NO limits, this is the kind of insanity that you'll get--a candidate who thinks nothing of making racist comments to the voters. To their white faces. She's got her 25-percent; tough luck honkies!
Socialism has produced more murders in its history than Genghis Khan. And now they run our broke little town.