Detailed Instructions: In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
Problem:Fluoride supporters, it appeared, had everything going for them. 
  
 Five Portland city commissioners had voted to add fluoride to the city water supply. Health advocacy groups, and many of the city's communities of color, lined up behind the cause. And proponents outraised opponents 3-to-1. 
  
 But none of that was enough. For the fourth time since 1956, Portlanders on Tuesday night rejected a plan to fluoridate city water, 60 percent to 40 percent. 
  
 "There's a libertarian component to Oregon politics ... a kind of opposition to what the establishment might want," said Bill Lunch, a political science professor at Oregon State University. "Those who have more money, despite the kind of popular presumptions in this regard, don't always win elections." 
  
 The lesser-known of two issues on the Portland ballot passed easily. Voters approved a third renewal of the city's Children's Levy with more than 70 percent in favor. The levy directs more than $9 million a year to programs that support about 14,000 children annually in areas such as child abuse prevention, after-school activities and foster care. 
  
 The campaign to renew the levy, however, took a back seat to the fight over fluoride, which intensified in the weeks leading to Election Day. 
  
 In Portland, where a largely Democratic electorate often finds liberal candidates struggling to differentiate themselves, the fluoride debate created stark, and heated, divisions. 
  
 Both campaigns accused the other of stealing yard signs. A thinly veiled anti-fluoride push poll went out to voters. Opponents were described as insensitive to equity issues, while proponents were accused of wanting to willingly pollute the city's famously pure water. 
  
 The issue also wound up politicizing a statewide health report that showed falling cavity and tooth decay rates in the state over the past five years. One of the report's authors said she felt pressured by Upstream Health, the group spearheading fluoridation, to present the findings in a certain way. 
  
 More than $1 million was spent on the campaign, a considerable total for a Portland-only election. But Portland finds itself back where it has historically been, as the only city among the nation's 30 most populous to not approve fluoridation. 
  
 Clean Water Portland, the group leading the opposition, was hesitant to claim victory, but it was clear an hour after the 8 p.m. ballot deadline that the measure didn't have enough support. 
  
 Still, said Kellie Barnes, a spokeswoman for the group, "when you really get down to it, clean water is a universal issue. 
  
 "When citizens took a look at the information, they decided for themselves that the risk wasn't worth it." 
  
 Barnes wouldn't discuss possible next steps, although the group has said it would like a ban on fluoride written into the city charter. 
  
 "I think we're going to take a little rest and reevaluate where we are." 
  
 The pro-fluoride group Healthy Kids, Healthy Portland conceded defeat early. "Disappointed" was the word of the night. 
  
 "The results are certainly disappointing, but I think they're mostly disappointing because, at the end of the day, we were not able to provide this preventative measure" to people who need it, said Alejandro Queral, co-chair of the group's steering committee. "The issue doesn't go away at the end of the election." 
  
 Dana Haynes, Mayor Charlie Hales' spokesman, said Hales had no plans to come back at the issue but shared supporters' frustration. 
  
 "The measure lost even with my own 'yes' vote," the mayor said in a statement. "Disappointing, but I accept the will of the voters." 
  
 Portland has been at odds with fluoridation for more than half a century. 
  
 In the 1950s, residents considered the question of fluoridation about the same time many of the nation's other large metro areas were adopting the practice as a way of fighting tooth decay. Portland voters bucked the trend and rejected the proposal. They said no again in 1962. 
  
 It seemed Portlanders had come around to the idea in 1978 when they approved a fluoridation plan. But two years later, they reversed course and voted to scrap it. 
  
 Since then, fluoridation has remained a constant political issue, on par with mandatory gas station attendants, occasionally coming up at the Legislature but never finding any traction. 
  
 That changed in September when, after a year of pro-fluoride lobbying, the Portland City Council quickly approved a plan to add fluoride at 0.7 parts per million beginning in March 2014. 
  
 The decision affected not just Portland, but 19 other cities, including Gresham, Tigard and Tualatin, that contract with the city to buy water from the Bull Run Reservoir. All told, the fluoridated water would have reached 900,000 people. 
  
 Early estimates put the project at $5 million for startup costs and $575,000 annually after that. 
  
 Opponents, however, quickly moved to get fluoride on the ballot. 
  
 In the months leading to the election, Healthy Kids, Healthy Portland focused on making the issue about equity. The group pulled together support among communities of color and raised more than $800,000 in cash and in-kind contributions. The group sold fluoridation as a scientifically sound method for fighting what they called the state's dental crisis, continuously noting that nearly three-fourths of Americans drink fluoridated water. 
  
 Despite its financial disadvantage, however, Clean Water Portland proved better at mobilizing an electorate wary of adding a chemical to one of the nation's cleanest sources of drinking water. Signs calling for residents to reject "fluoridation chemicals" popped up on lawns across the city even as stories in the national media popped up, poking fun at the city's resistance to a common practice. 
  
 "The simplicity of their message was certainly an advantage," said Queral from Healthy Kids, Healthy Portland. "I think the opponents did a very good job of casting doubt on the science. I think they homed in on their message and they hammered away on it." 
  
 -- Ryan Kost 
  
 -- Brad Schmidt contributed reporting to this story. 
  
  ||||| Oral health and politics collided Tuesday as Portlanders _ proudly nonconformist and environmentally minded _ decided whether their city remains the largest in the U.S. without public fluoridation. 
  
 Voters had weeks to make their choice in the mail-ballot election. But by Tuesday it was too late to rely on the postman, so drop boxes have been placed across the city to accommodate those who waited until the final day to make a decision, as well as people who didn't want to pay for postage. 
  
 Supporters and opponents of fluoridation have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and traded accusations of sign-stealing and shoddy science in an election that has been the city's most contentious of the 21st century. 
  
 If voters say no, Portland will remain the largest U.S. city without fluoride in the water or plans to add it to combat tooth decay. Voters in Portland twice rejected fluoridation before approving it in 1978. That plan was overturned two years later, before any fluoride was ever added to the water. 
  
 A sampling of voters dropping off ballots in rainy Pioneer Courthouse Square found people opposed to fluoridation. 
  
 "People don't like change. When in doubt, say no," said Tracy Rauscher, a native Portlander who, like a native Portlander, did not use an umbrella. 
  
 Portland's drinking water already contains naturally occurring fluoride, though not at levels considered to be effective at fighting cavities. Backers of fluoridation say adding more of it to the water is a safe, effective and affordable way to improve the health of low-income children whose parents don't stress proper nutrition and dental hygiene. 
  
 Opponents describe fluoride as a chemical that will ruin the city's pristine water supply, and they argue that adding it would violate an individual's right to consent to medication. 
  
 Although most Americans drink water treated with fluoride, it has long been a contentious topic. In the 1950s, fluoridation was feared as a Communist plot. Today, people worry that its effect on the body has not been sufficiently examined. 
  
 "I don't want chemicals in my water," Sarah Lazzaro said after voting Tuesday. "I know that there are really no known health risks with it, but there's a lot of things we find out later in life really do have health risks." 
  
 The issue re-appeared on Portland's radar late last summer, when health organizations that had quietly lobbied the City Council for a year persuaded the panel to unanimously approve fluoridation by March 2014. 
  
 Days before the vote, 227 people _ most of them opponents _ signed up to testify at a public hearing that lasted 6 1/2 hours. When their objections weren't heeded, they quickly gathered tens of thousands of signatures to force Tuesday's vote. |||||
Solution:
The good voters of Portland, Ore., have once again rejected plans to add fluoride to their water to combat tooth decay, keeping it the biggest American city without fluoridation. The city voted 60% to 40% to stay fluoride-free last night, the fourth such rejection since 1956, the Oregonian reports. Fluoridation passed a vote in 1978, but the decision was overturned two years later before any fluoride was added to the water, the AP reports. More than $1 million was spent during a bad-tempered campaign that saw both sides accusing the other of sign-stealing and using junk science. Opponents of fluoridation argued that its effects on the body might not be fully understood. "I don't want chemicals in my water," one woman said after voting. "I know that there are really no known health risks with it, but there's a lot of things we find out later in life really do have health risks."