Jack, as someone who is helping Amanda get a few of those $5 contributions, I can tell you she is working VERY hard at it. Those who say that it's a piece of cake to get 1000 of these have way underestimated the difficulty.

And by the way, the "first things first" folks have retained your favorite PR firm, Gard and Gerber, for this campaign. I seem to recall that you declined to sign another petition because G&G was behind it. Will you equally give this one a pass?

Ah, yes. G&G, the civic-minded crew who SO MUCH believed in HONEST DEBATE that they created a front-group of "citizens" against a local public utility district. Anything they work AGAINST I am almost automatically FOR just to spite their deceptive PR flack practices.

Amanda is precisely the kind of candidate such a "clean money" system should help enter the ring, whatever your issues with that system (and I've a few).

Like Chris, I'm an enthusiastic Amanda supporter. And that's less to do with Saltzman than what Amanda brings to the table. We need a broader discussion about the City's spending priorities, and how neighborhood needs are faring in the way we're doing business now. The city loses credibility when we claim we're too broke to put sidewalks in neighborhoods, but we'll spend $45 million for a tram that makes no economic sense anymore, if it ever did.

Mayor Potter's opened to door to this discussion. Amanda's voice will be a great, neighborhood-based addition to that discussion.

As a teacher and sometimes user of rational choice theory, Amanda's online claim poses an interesting case study.

Anyone interested in collecting 1000 donations should overreport the number of donations they have already received, because if the number is below some threshhold, I suspect that potential donors will rank the candidacy as insufficiently promising.

Is there any way to confirm the actual number of $5 donations received? Is any sort of reporting required at all?

Please understand, I am not suggesting that Amanda is misreporting. I'm just turning over some ideas in my head.

So I browsed over to Blackmer's site and I can find the list of folks who are participating in the system (http://www.portlandonline.com/auditor/index.cfm?&a=90893&c=27114)

Ok, it does appear that there will be no way to check on candidate claims until the form 210-C is filed (http://www.portlandonline.com/auditor/index.cfm?&a=90599&c=38751)

The system puts a lot of pressure on the candidates, because if they accidentally accept donations from non-qualified individuals, they have to return them w/in 5 days or they can't participate in the public financing system. I suspect they'll have to relax the five day requirement. Pretty harsh.

Anyway, congrats to Amanda for getting started so rapidly.

Don't know how their campaign is going, but one can sign up to be on the FTF committee's mailing last at this address: http://www.firstthingsfirstcommittee.com/ .

Anyone interested in collecting 1000 donations should overreport the number of donations they have already received, because if the number is below some threshhold, I suspect that potential donors will rank the candidacy as insufficiently promising. ~ Paul

Paul, I'm a Registered Nurse. For the past 27 years, accuracy and integrity in documentation has been my job. Plus, since the first core value I want to promote as a City Commissioner is "Restore Trust in Government", it would be incongruent to lie on my web site by inflating the number of donations received.

So far, we've received two donations in the mail from people who don't live in Portland. We returned them within the 5 day time limit, and filed the required documentation with the Auditor's Office. Anyone is welcome to view our records to verify the number of donations received, before we reach the goal of 1000 and submit all the paperwork to the Auditor. Please e-mail me at VoteAmanda06@aol.com to set up an appointment.

Trust, transparency, accountability. Watch how I manage collecting the $5 donations, and consider whether you want someone independent and indebted only to the taxpayers of Portland as your city commissioner.

Thanks for your coverage, Jack! The total is 609 today, and I set a new target date of 11/22 to gather the rest of the 1000 contributions/signatures.