from cleanwaterportland.org: The effort to overturn the Portland City Council’s rushed decision to add fluoridation chemicals to Portland’s drinking water won a major victory on Thursday by submitting more than twice the number of signatures required to stop the fluoridation law from taking effect until voters could weigh in on the controversial decision. Most political pundits said the volunteer-run effort was unlikely to gather the 20,000 signatures needed, but a grassroots and bi-partisan volunteer effort along withprofessional signature collectors defied steep odds. Organizers had only a few weeks to organize the campaign in the face of what appeared to be an intentional effort by Commissioner Randy Leonard and Mayor Sam Adams to rush the decision through the City before there was time to organize for a referendum effort. “In case there was any question, this overwhelming response sends a clear message that Portlanders value the quality of our drinking water,” said Kim Kaminski with Clean Water Portland and one of the chief petitioners for the referendum. “Adding what even the pro-fluoride backers admit is an industrial byproduct to our world-class drinking water in the name of protecting children’s teeth is misguided and increasing our water bills to pay for it is an insult.”