Portland likes to call itself the country's most livable city. However, they don't tell the whole story of what happens when city hall tries to micro manage every aspect of city life. Here are some of the things you won't see in national magazine articles extolling the virtues of Portland.

Infamous Portland - things they don't tell you

• Portland has the highest unemployment rate in the country.(Spring 2002)

• Portland has the worst increase in traffic congestion in the county. (Spring 2002)

• Portland has the 8th worst traffic congestion in the country. (Spring 2002)

• Portland has the shortest school year in the country. (Fall 2002)

• Portland was considering reducing police and fire services to save money. (Spring 2002)

The common denominator? - Portland's smart growth is sucking the life out of Portland, as business flee the excessive regulations and expenses inherent in imposing smart growth upon the city. You see, smart growth is more expensive than ordinary growth and cannot exist without strict government rules to stop ordinary growth and subsidies to encourage growth to happen.

Things they lie about

• Lie: Portland removed a freeway and built a waterfront park. Why it is a lie: They don't mention that  it happened after they built a wider, better freeway on the other side of the river (I5), a new freeway away from the river on the same side (I405). The truth they should have said: Portland moved a freeway across the river which freed up the downtown riverfront.

• Lie: Portland replaced a central city parking lot with "Pioneer Square". Why it is a lie: They don't mention the multi-story parking garage they built as a higher capacity replacement before closing that parking lot. The truth they should have said: Portland increased downtown parking by replacing a surface lot with a multistory parking garage a few blocks and then built "Pioneer Square" where the surface lot used to be.

• Lie: The Pearl District, Riverfront and Brewery blocks have all sprung up recently as a result of Portland's "smart growth" or "new urbanism". The truth they should have said: Portland gives massive subsidies to encourage developers to build high density. For instance, the Pearl District received $150 million in infrastructure to encourage building. Those new buildings also pay property tax on ONLY the raw land for 10 years. Riverfront and Brewery blocks are also receiving tax subsidies. This is part of the reason that Portland is considering cutting back on police, fire and has the shortest school year in the country. You see, "new urbanism" does not make financial sense without government subsidies.

• Deceptive: Portland decided to build light rail instead of a new freeway. True, but that is main reason we have the worst increase in traffic congestion in the country.

The Real Portland

Free ride for developers of high density

• $150 million infrastructure subsidy to Pearl district.
• Tax free for 10 years: Pearl District, Russellville, Commons, Riverfront and many more. (Click for partial list)

Bad Projects:

• $30 million Esplanade was built using $5 million federal transportation and $25 million local taxes for a floating walkway.
• GE park remodel: "$38 million sweetheart deal"( CITY HALL SMACK DOWN, by PHILIP DAWDY , Willamette Week, Wednesday, Feb 20, 2002). City decided to subsidize the payroll for workers at the park.
• PGE Park: What went wrong?
• City considers loss options for PGE park
• Horse barn: ?million
• $12 million building for Multnomah County's Children's Receiving center.  Has 16 beds. Plus office space.(Oregonian 11/15/02, County Pledges $164,000 to children's center)
• Coming soon: $140 million local match for I205 rail. McLoughlin rail???
• Any high density subsidy is "uneconomic". Report from ECO northwest
• Because of the city's planning code, Dan Yates and Wayne Kingsley built the most expensive building per square foot ($800 sq. ft., $64,000 total )in the state - a ticket booth ( Brainstorm, March 2002, "Vera's Portland, The city That Shrinks")
• The City Hall remodel cost $40 million instead of $20 million, and then they had to go build another building for $60 million more. Brainstorm, March 2002, "Vera's Portland, The city That Shrinks")
• Billion dollar sewer may not meet Feds approval
• City rejects private development for River District, instead PDC decides to subsidize high density. PDC plans to issue $30 million in bonds ( Cash ready to flow to River District, Portland Tribune 11/08/2002)
• A million for trolley art. The cost of the new light rail art project is $1.2 million and will be spread throughout 10 stops. The art projects will cover such topics, as the healing power of light and nature, and the importance of water.The Oregonian 10-5-01 (http://www.oregonwatchdog.com/w-waste4.htm)
• Baseball "Pork": The city, along with key investors, poured $50 million into renovating the aging civic stadium. The flush of money helped pay the chief partner a quarter million salary, and the city stepped in to subsidize the wages of the food vendors so the Park could qualify for the city living-wage rule. Since its grand opening, the Park has been a colossal flop. Instead of rosy profits for the city in the first year, the city is now looking at $8 million in the red. Within a few weeks after the park opened, partners were already looking for a way to get out, and the baseball and soccer team were looking to leave. It must be noted that the original park plans were made behind closed doors. The Mayor even signed an secrecy agreement that prevented fellow councillors from seeing the park’s projections before opening. Such deals are made behind closed doors to avoid scrutiny by taxpayers and the public, who would not appreciate a good financial deal when they see one. This and other insights on the folly of the PGE park can be found in a special expose by the Willamette Week (WW 10-03-01) (http://www.oregonwatchdog.com/w-waste4.htm).
• Tri-Met is in constant need  for taxpayer subsidies: "Tri-Met has become a poster child for transit in cities around the world. It's often cited as a progressive system full of innovative ideas about how to better use buses and trains. But at home, its boss says the system needs a new money source if progress is to continue." (Oregonian, 06/13/02, Tri-Met seeks money to keep up innovations)
• Selling our water system: Portland can come up with hundreds of millions to subsidize high density development and light rail, but not to preserve our water supply: http://www.PortlandTribune.com/viewcurr.cgi?id=15070
• METRO gives $300,000 to developer: "Metro bought the 2.2-acre site for $700,000 and plans to sell it back to the original owner, Peak Development, for about $400,000."  
• Portland gives $15,000 to coop to build green
• Portland baseball dreams: Diligence due in examining baseball deal
• "Public Funding of Sports Stadiums: Ballpark Boondoggle"
• "Professional Sports Subsidy as Economic Development," the nation's top urban planning thesis in 1998
• Pearl district development: annual loss in tax revenue of more than $550,000 on this building alone
• Portland's creative services building
• Arts want $100 million subsidy

Political Clout For Sale?

• 11/5/2002 , Council contributors target campaign giving

• 11/5/2002 , How to rein in contributions

• 11/5/2002 , City Hall: clout for sale?

General Incompetence

• Lost companies: Columbia Sportswear, M&F Headquarters (520 jobs)(Brainstorm)
• Water Bureau computer - loss at least $5 million. Some estimates to $15 million
• Urban Renewal was getting property taxes in violation of the law until the Shilo decision stopped it. (Oregonian 2/21/02)
• Transit Mall is starting to be recognized for the mistake it was. (Oreg: 02/28/02)
• Aerial Tram: Mayor & Head of PDC announced support for the tram in February, but public hearings to help PDC make the decision were to be held in April -- they had decided upon the tram before the public hearings. ( CITY HALL SMACK DOWN, by PHILIP DAWDY , Willamette Week, Wednesday, Feb 20, 2002)
• "Fool me once, shame on you - fool me twice, shame on me," goes the old saying. Public agencies seem unable to learn this lesson when it comes to bad vendors. The Portland Development Commission had one such experience when they contracted to pay $70,000 to Creative Data Corp., a computer consulting company, to install a new computer software. The vital financial software system never worked and caused rampant problems in the office. Despite a failed software system and an expired contract, Creative Data Corp saw their compensation grow to $500,000. In the end, PDC decided to hire a new consulting firm and pay $1.2 million to install a fully functional software system. Even with the new consultants, PDC still is attached to Creative Data Corp and is paying them $140,000 for on-going work. http://www.oregonwatchdog.com/w-waste1.htm
• A Portland policeman under investigation for disability fraud was able to keep his payments because he was sent to jail as a two-time sex offender. The imprisonment halted the fraud charges and allowed him to receive disability payments that continued for 12 years, totaling $450,000.2 2.State Audit 10/23/00
• $50 million on consultants: The City of Portland spends $50 million a year on architects, engineers, attorneys, management consultants, and other contract labor. The city audit report noted that consultant fees were not controlled, payments frequently went beyond the original contract without documentation or reason, and required performance evaluations were seldom used. Many of the outside contracts that were designed to relieve city employees of small repetitive tasks turned into huge sizable projects. One project by the Transportation Engineering Dept. ballooned to almost a million dollars. Portland City Audit 12-2001 (http://www.oregonwatchdog.com/waste-spring02.htm)
• $308,000 Urban Renewal Survey: The city of Portland is planning to spend more than a quarter million for a survey to find out how people are affected by urban renewal and rising housing prices.
• Free Rent at Taxpayer Expense: The Portland Development Commission's real estate manager is resigning after one of her employees moved into a house owned by the PDC. The manager and employee worked out a free rent for three months in the city owned house in exchange for some house repairs. The required public advertising of the rental space was curiously not done for this particular house. The PDC is committed to helping the employee find a new home and may even give financial aid in the process. The Oregonian 1-15-02 (http://www.oregonwatchdog.com/waste-spring02.htm)
• Bad Cop, Worse Cop: Three current and former top officers in the Portland Police are under investigation for perjury. The former chief of internal affairs, Capt. William Bennington, was asked to produce documents of a fellow officer. Bennington gave a sworn affidavit that the requested documents did not exist. After the trial, over a hundred pages of the documents did become known. Other officers, Capt. Robert Kaufman and Deputy Chief Bruce Prunk, are under fire for giving testimony conflicting with prior statements and perjury. Willamette Week 11-21-02 (http://www.oregonwatchdog.com/waste-spring02.htm)
• Former Mayor Goldschmidt says that this may be the smartest City Council in the city's history, but that there's such "a narrow bandwidth in philosophy" among its members that some interest groups, like the business community, feel frozen out. CITY HALL SMACK DOWN, by PHILIP DAWDY , Willamette Week, Wednesday, Feb 20,
• Flash: They are now talking about a $350 million stadium to attract major league baseball.
• One district is reviving withour PDC's wasteful spending: Montavilla makes its own luck
• On election day, with Measure 28's income tax increase in the balance, Katz was in New York City pitching Portland to Major League Baseball executives.
• The Portland School District started the 1990s with more than $25 million in reserve. Rather than raise class sizes to offset declining income, leaders spent the savings.

Schools system:

• Big severance pay for school district employee, then hire as consultant.
• Extensive recruiting for head of school district comes up empty.
• School Funds to Second-guess Schools: Portland schools paid $8,900 in lawyer fees asking the Attorney General for a ruling regarding whether a for-profit business could operate a charter school when the answer is clearly spelled out in statute. Critics saw this challenge against legislative intent and national precedence as a delaying tactic against charter school advocates. (The Oregonian 01-10-01).
• Portland School Board let go their deputy superintendent after seven months. She left with a $158,000 check, plus attorney fees, moving expenses and $10,000 towards her education fund. (http://www.oregonwatchdog.com/w-waste3.htm).
• Oregon schools fear 'needing improvement' label

Intentional outrages

• Pepsi Bottling Co. in Portland, was fined $3,755 for failing to meet the requirements of the Employee Commute Options rule. The rule violation was for not reducing the number of employees who drive vehicles to work. Other companies in Portland were also given similar fines (The Oregonian 11-28-00) (http://www.oregonwatchdog.com/w-waste3.htm).
• The Portland Ombudsman helped to remedy a permit fee horror story that is all too familiar with taxpayers. The Joy family paid for an electrician for some work which included a $70 charge for an electrical "reconnect permit", for which the electrician never paid. The Planning Office went after the Joy family who responded by faxing their permit payment invoice to the office, claiming it must have been paid. When the Joys discovered that their electrician never paid the permit, they tried to make payments themselves, but were told that only their electrician can pay it -- who no longer existed. The Joys desperately trying to remedy the situation, found themselves with the $70 permit fee turning into $2,427 worth of late charges and fines. The City Ombudsman stated "there was no reasonable avenue available for Marsha and Timothy Joy to resolve the matter, despite their repeated attempts to do so." Even after payment of the permit, the billings continued. Not only did the Planning office give delays in responding to the Joys, they also delayed responding to the City Ombudsman for three months, despite giving the case the highest priority. The report stated "It's not the city's objective to make it difficult for property owners to comply with code requirements in order to have a good number of them fail and be subject to fees, penalties, and interest charges that will eventually accrue and become a source of revenue."Portland Audit report 2001 (http://www.oregonwatchdog.com/waste-spring02.htm)

Randy Leonard Watch

• Leonard rankles a few bureau chiefs at City Hall

We believe that Portland is rapidly losing its livability

If  you think Portland is Screwed Up - check out the mischief of Metro, our regional government

PDC mentions subsidies for people making up to 150% of median family income! (http://www.portlanddev.org/pdf/pubs/housing/housing_downtown_target.pdf)
See PDF page 21" · 121 – 150% MFI: "Longer-term PDC subsidy may be necessary to produce units affordable at 81 - 150% MFI."

Why are we subsidizing low income people to live on the highest value land in the state (downtown Portland) when they could live subsidy free just a short MAX (light rail) ride away?

High density is not economically viable in Portland. Therefore we give subsidies to achieve high density.

Portland is considering spending $200 million to provide infrastructure (water, sewer & streets) to an industrial area so that it can be developed to high density, after rejecting the current owner's development plan, which would require NO SUBSIDIES, because it was not dense enough. .Most of the giant apartments will be tax free for 10 years. At the same time, Portland billed a small pizza shop owner a $35,000 infrastructure fee to move across the street.

Some Links

Cascade Policy Institute
Randall O'Toole
Oregon Transportation Institute
Wendall Cox
Black Farmers Deprived of their land's value: http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm/include/detail/storyid/262280.html
Minnesota Taxpayers League    http://www.taxpayersleague.org/pdf/TransBrochure.pdf
California Freeway relieves congestion http://www.fixtraffic.org/

More Articles

High Density requires subsidies: Metro Urban Centers: An Evaluation of the Density of Development  (see PDF page 8: SUMMARY OF EXPLANATIONS)
Council backs plan to recreate Macadam  Oregonian 11/14/02
It's time Waterfront Park joined downtown Oregonian 11/17/02
High Cost of Transit's False Promises

Other stuff

Understanding Plannerspeak

"Portland today works for retailers primarily because we have reliable, predictable and supportive short-term municipal parking garages"  (full article: http://www.PortlandTribune.com/viewcurr.cgi?id=15436)  The writers co-chair the Downtown Retail Council -- they are not isolated academics deciding how other people should live, nor are they politicians playing to special interests.

"Light Rail: A 19th century solution to a non-existent 21st century problem"

• When the country is short of its quota of ignorance, we usually turn to politicos who have essentially zero technical knowledge - but a LOT of  enthusiasm for unproven and impractical solutions to problems.

• "sprawl is cause by affluence and population growth, and which of these, exactly, do we propose to prohibit?", Greg Easterbrook of The New Republic

Oregon Steals from Farmers

In some states, environmental groups are buying development rights from farmers in order prevent future development. This is a marketable item worth money. In Oregon, the state just stole that right from everyone who lives outside of the UGB.

Links

Light Rail
PublicCitizen

Links taken from fixtraffic.org:

Groups Advocating for Roads, Freeways, and Mobility

710 Freeway Coalition (Los Angeles County)
RoadsWorkBest (Orange County)
Aristotle on Urban Transportation Issues (Orange County; by Jack Mallinckrodt, Director of Drivers for Highway Safety)
F.A.I.R. Transit (Orange County)
Transportation California (State)
California Commuters Alliance (State)
American Highway User's Alliance (National)
National Motorists Association (National)
Association of British Drivers (Great Britain)
Other Educational / Think-Tank Organizations Addressing Transportation Issues

Texas Transportation Institute--Urban Mobility Study
New Study Released--Greater Los Angeles is once again the most gridlocked region in the nation. This thanks to our failure to build enough highway infrastructure to keep up with population growth.

Wendell Cox Consultancy--The Public Purpose
Common-sense organization dedicated to dispelling the myths about "smart" growth and transit-oriented policies.  Also join an open debate forum on these issues at Yahoo Groups.

Reason Public Policy Institute
An organization with a host of good ideas and solutions for many of today's problems--including how to build our way out of congestion.  Yes, it can be done!

The Thoreau Institute
An advocacy group seeking solutions to environmental issues without big-government regulation or strong centralized control. Also advocates for the American Dream of mobility and home ownership.

Sustainability

If six billion people have both more food and more forest than their three billion parents did; if the prices of copper, wheat and natural gas are going down, not up;if there are 20 times more carcinogens in three cups of organic coffee than in daily dietary exposure to the worst pesticide both before and after the DDT ban; if renewable resources such as whales are more easily exhausted than non-renewables such as coal; if lower infant mortality leads to falling populations, not rising ones, then perhaps we need to think differently about what sustainability means. Perhaps the most sustainable thing we can do is develop new technology, increase trade and spread affluence. (from: http://www.sepp.org/NewSEPP/Profits_Of_Doom.htm)

The most arresting statistic that Lomborg produces is this. It is well known that meeting the Kyoto treaty on carbon-dioxide reduction will delay global warming by six years at most by 2100. Yet the annual cost of that treaty, in each year of the century, would be the same as the cost - once - of installing clean drinking water and sanitation for every human being on the planet. Priorities, anyone?   (from: http://www.sepp.org/NewSEPP/Profits_Of_Doom.htm)

remember:

'The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed - and hence clamorous to be led to safety - by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."   H.L. Mencken

Be sure to browse: http://www.sepp.org/NewSEPP/newsepp.html      http://www.sepp.org/GWbooklet/withfigures.html

DownLoads

Bumper sticker (about 150k):  I'm Allergic to Katz also see: saveprtland.com to order commerically made stickers
Bumper sticker (about 150k): Vera made the trains run
Bumper sticker (about 150k): Katz: Give us Living Space
Bumper sticker (about 150k): Metro: Give us Living Space

Print on legal size paper. Waterproof with clear acrylic spray. Spray back white.

Automobiles

One very highly subsidized "good' that very definitely is not overconsumed is new rail transit, especially light rail. Even free streetcars don't get people out of their cars. Car go more places. They are almost always faster than transit. The driver controls who he sits in close proximity to. He doesn't have to wait in unpleasant weather for his car. His car not only transports him but can efficiently make a status-enhancing statement about its owner, like fine clothes. Indeed destinations that are difficult of auto access cannot compete with competitive destinations that offer easy auto access. This is a major factor in the decline of the OPAC (that's Obsolete Pre-Automotive City, if you're new to this list).  "J F Scott" <jfscott@cal.net>, transport-policy@yahoogroups.com

Planners

City planners (if we _must_ have them at all, and I'd rather we didn't) need to get it through their heads that people WILL behave this way, and it's their duty to deal with it by providing the needed parking on every street.. From: transport-policy@yahoogroups.com, John David Galt <jdg@diogenes.sacramento.ca.us>

9/13/2002 , Readers name their council picks
9/10/2002 , Readers' Letters
8/16/2002 , Council hopefuls make their cases
8/13/2002 , Council hopefuls reveal what makes them tick
8/16/2002 , Liz Callison
5/17/2002 , Readers' Letters
5/10/2002 , Erik’s mother did what?
3/26/2002 , A slim hope - Tram foes pin argument on ‘park’ in Terwilliger Parkway
3/26/2002 , Rival puts Sten in hot seat over water billing fiasco
3/19/2002 , PDX Update