Flushing your dollars down the drain ...

Portland's Voter Owned Elections Taxpayer Funded Elections are circling the drain and leaving skids.

Now it's revealed that Portland utility customers (presumably water and sewer customers) contributed $284,000 this year for public financing of City Council campaigns.

Even though the water and sewer departments are owned and operated by the City, they are enterprises. As enterprises, IIRC, the City cannot earn a "profit" on these departments to cross subsidize (e.g.) the general fund. However, the Oregonian story suggests that water and sewer fees are being used to fund City elections.

Voter owned? Nope. Taxpayer funded? Yes and more ...

Portland is the first city in the country with Poo Powered Elections!

Just keep flushing, we'll make more.

Urban renewal mischief

Urban renewal is a scam. It "works" where it isn't needed (Ex. A: Pearl District), and fails where it is (Ex. B: Gateway).

The Central Eastside Urban Renewal Area was formed in 1986. Twenty years later, all we have to show for it is the Vera Katz Eastbank Esplanade. One wag remarked that naming it after Katz was the only way to get her to visit Portland's Eastside.

Now, PDC is quietly attempting to extend the life of the Central Eastside Urban Renewal Area. The Commission voted 4-0 to extend the life another 8 years and bump the debt limit by another 34 percent.

But, this time we'll going to get a STREETCAR! Eastsiders have been pining for a streetcar ever since the Belmont trolleys stopped running decades ago. A STREETCAR! Just imagine all the transit oriented development we'll get. A STREETCAR! The increases in property taxes will pay for improvements many times over. A STREETCAR!

After 28 years of urban renewal, the Central Eastside will have a needle-strewn esplanade, some sort of mixed-use dealy at the Burnside Bridgehead, and a STREETCAR.

Hurry up, PDC. The next City Council may not be so amenable to urban renewal.

How Dan Saltzman lost the vote

City Commissioner Dan Saltzman was a tough call. He supported the Aerial Tram from Day 1. He created the Office of Sustainable Development. He pimped the Children's Initiative which clearly stepped over the City-County division of labor. But the #1 thing he did that would have earned a vote was his vigorous push for reform of Portland's biggest money suck, the police and fire disability system.

Today, the Oregonian reports that he has flopped again and decided to "appease the unions" and support Policeman Potter's plan.

That's one less vote for Saltzman and one more write-in for my cat.

A Tram with a linchpin?

Webster defines a linchpin as a locking pin inserted crosswise (as through the end of an axle or shaft). The OHSU and it newspaper, characterize it as a dazzling tram that zaps doctors and patients from Pill Hill to the South Waterfront.

With the Oregonian's lastest linchpin linking, the Wino started to wonder where did all this linchpin nonsense begin?

After some digging, I found the first reference the Tram-as-linchpin in this piece by [drumroll] Randy Gragg (Sunday Oregonian, June 23, 2002):

The tram, to proponents like Williams, is the linchpin in a network of streetcar lines and light-rail lines to downtown, the central eastside and Lake Oswego. With OHSU at its center, Williams thinks, North Macadam could become an educational magnet for collaborative and branch programs from Oregon's entire university system -- "the best of the best," he says -- resulting in the major research campus the city has long lacked.

According to Kohler, Phase 2 discussions are under way for a new dental school, a new facility for OHSU and Oregon State University's joint college of pharmacy, a joint Portland State University/OHSU bioengineering building and possibly a new facility for Beaverton-based Oregon Graduate Institute.

But in a classic developers' poker gambit, OHSU and Williams' group say all bets are off without the tram and streetcar.

"This isn't brain surgery," Williams says. "We've got problems on that hill. Trams are all over the world. They're proven. It's not a toy. It's about connections and people's time.

The price tag according to Gragg: $10.2 million to $15.85 million.