Jesse Valencia

For a good long spell I stood alone on the Live Nation fight here in Portland because, at the time, we were losing and I was admittedly too naive, too feisty, too crass, too offensive...whatever you want to call it, I was too much of 'it' to handle that fight in a grown-up, professional way.

That's because I was seeing my very genuinely good-hearted friends get dragged through the mud by rich men with no integrity, for the specific end of developing stolen land, and homie don't play that way.

However, I wasn't making things any better, so I removed myself before I made them worse.

Now that our position in that fight has been vindicated, it is time to come together, to forgive and make amends, and to move forward together to work on solid music policy for Portland.

Music, film, the arts...the answers to our economic and housing challenges are within these communities. We're the Independent Music Capital of the World, and we ought to be proud of it!

Opinion | The Live Nation verdict is a faceplant for the Trump administration Americans are saying enough to an economy in which monopolies prosper at the expense of honest businesses and powerless consumers.