Providing citizens the right to vote on how their city officials are elected is the right thing to do.

Our thanks go out to Gresham voters who recently supported the initiative to amend the Gresham City Charter to elect the mayor at-large and six councilors by districts.

Support for electing city councilors by district representation was overwhelming. We exceeded the number of needed signatures by 33 percent.

This grassroots effort was achieved by volunteers who collected signatures throughout the neighborhoods of Gresham.

This important initiative will appear on the Nov. 6 ballot for all Gresham voters to consider. Please vote.

District representation is the way we elect Metro commissioners, county commissioners, state and federal senators and representatives. If this model works at these levels of government, why isn’t it the best model for the city of Gresham?

To learn more about the initiative or volunteer to help, please go to gresham6districts.org.

Thank you citizens of Gresham for your support.

Charles Becker

Kenneth Stine

Richard Strathern

Gresham

chief petitioners

Obama’s message all fluff, no substance

President Obama came to the Rose City with his same old message about class warfare, which isn’t resonating with voters.

How can “hope and change” evolve into class warfare and despair? What happened to transparency?

Because class warfare has become a central theme of the Obama administration, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio got it right when he said, “I’m troubled by rhetoric that pits people against each other. We have never been a nation of haves and have nots. We are a nation of haves and soon-to-haves, of people who have made it and people who will make it. And that’s who we need to remain.”

Was “hope and change” really a dream not meant to be?

It was Barack Obama who, as president, put through ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform, the Consumer Protection Act, and who opposed the Keystone XL Pipeline, increasing the national debt by nearly $5 trillion. America lost its AAA credit rating during his administration.

Did David Axelrod, senior strategist for Obama’s re-election campaign, actually create a mythology about Obama that was greater than he really is, portraying him as a messiah who would unite and heal this nation rather than being what President Obama really is, a liberal redistributionist who got a free ride by the national news media all the way to the White House?

Since the president can’t run on “hope and change,” he plans to rip his opponent to shreds with false allegations, thus diverting attention from jobs, debt and his incompetence.

His whole focus will be on disqualifying the Republican nominee Mitt Romney by convincing the voters that he (the president) isn’t the issue, it’s the “do nothing” Congress and Romney.

Once again, I ask, are you really better off today than you were four years ago?

Louis H. Bowerman

Southeast Portland