Next Up at City Council, 12/19/07

Submitted by Amanda Fritz on December 17, 2007 - 9:07am.

The Portland City Council Agenda for December 19 includes an evening hearing:


1519 TIME CERTAIN: 6:00 PM - Accept report Improving Bicycle Safety in Portland outlining initial City policy improvements and engineering enhancements undertaken to increase bicycle safety in response to recent tragic bicyclist fatalities (Resolution introduced by Commissioner Adams)

The Council may hold evening hearings every third Wednesday of the month, but rarely chooses to do so. I'm glad to see this important topic covered at a time when more citizens can participate.

The first item on Wednesday's Consent Agenda:


*1489 Allow City Council to hold its regular meeting and recessed sessions at Jefferson High School on January 16 and 17, 2008 (Ordinance; waive Code Section 3.02.010)

Good to see. The Council should hold meetings in the community more often, and regularly.

A more worrisome Consent item:


1500 Amend contract with Portland Streetcar, Inc. to provide additional professional services for project management and vehicle engineering services for production of a domestically manufactured streetcar (Ordinance; amend Contract No. 37119)

The ordinance increases the payment to Portland Streetcar, Inc., by $184,398, as number six in a list of findings that doesn't seem to me to relate to numbers one through five. And then the accompanying "whereas" list contains a convoluted series of contract takeaways and givebacks that will make most citizens' heads spin.

Another big ticket item on Consent:

*1503 Authorize two subrecipient contracts for $338,043 for winter housing services for homeless women and provide for payment (Ordinance)

Housing is part of the City's core mission and responsibility. A caring society helps people who would otherwise be outside in this cold, nasty weather. Jack Bog's blog notes today that operating expenses per capita of the Bureau of Housing and Community Development has fallen, relative to spending in other bureaus.

I don't see much controversy on the short Regular Agenda, other than the Wednesday evening bicycle issue. This item makes me wonder:


*1515 Accept a donation of $1,575,000 from the Portland Parks Foundation on behalf of an anonymous donor for the development of South Park Block 5 (Ordinance)

It's A Good Thing that we have the Parks Foundation to solicit and broker philanthropic donations, which then become tax-deductions for donors. And certainly, whoever is giving this large chunk of change could have chosen not to. But let's remember that sometimes, affluent donors can afford to give because they've made money on the backs of working people. I posted Who's paying for the new park on Block 5 in the South Park blocks back in August, and subsequently commented about Public philanthropy, private debts. I don't know who's giving this $1,575,000 donation. I wonder whether some of the money was accumulated because of tax breaks for downtown development, if not from underpaying janitors. These thoughts could be groundless. I've certainly experienced the benefit of completely wonderful philanthropists giving to the Holly Farm Park and other parks in Portland, with money earned and multiplied by open investments. I hope this donation comes from a source like that. Let's remember, too, that over $2 million for this new park is coming from City taxpayers.

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No question the Streetcar

Submitted by Chris Smith on December 17, 2007 - 10:18am.
No question the Streetcar item is complicated :-) Blame the feds. Congressman DeFazio secured an earmark in the last transportation authorization bill to provide $4M for prototype of a domestically manufactured Streetcar, through a grant to TriMet, which is the local government already set up to get such grants. TriMet through an inter-governmental agreement authorized the City of Portland to manage the program (since the prototype car will run on Portland's system). Portland in turn contracts with Portland Streetcar Inc. to manage and oversee the project (non-profit PSI was created to build and operate the Streetcar system for Portland). The Federal dollars are appropriated annually over four years (approx $1M per year, but Congress sometimes plays games with the number). So each year when the appropriation is made, the City has to appropriate the oversight and management fees. That's what you're seeing in this Council action. The funds are mostly for third party inspection of the design and construction process. Admittedly, these inspections are not as fun as the ones in the Czech Republic. Just to remind folks, Oregon Iron Works in Clackamas County won the bid on this contract, which means the resurgence in Streetcars around the country means Oregon jobs in our region. Dozens of cities have visited Portland to see what we have done with Streetcar, now they can stay an extra day and visit a potential supplier for their vehicles! I would also note that the earmark was for ONE prototype vehicle, but Oregon Iron Works is building TWO, the second one speculatively with their own $$$. [Full disclosure, I am a board member of Portland Streetcar Inc.]
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Thank you for the

Submitted by Amanda Fritz on December 17, 2007 - 5:35pm.
Thank you for the information, Chris.
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the City has to appropriate

Submitted by FrankDufay on December 17, 2007 - 8:44pm.
the City has to appropriate the oversight and management fees. That's what you're seeing in this Council action. The funds are mostly for third party inspection of the design and construction process. Project management is one line item, oversight another, and reporting yet a third. Seems like a lot of soft money to me. (Full disclosure: I rode the streetcar over lunch today.)
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> This follows the Council

Submitted by FrankDufay on December 17, 2007 - 8:52pm.
<<< In the Coordination Agreement, TMT agreed to replace the street improvements that it would have to remove in order to construct the garage. The City, however, intends to improve the frontages of SW Park Avenue and SW 9th Avenue as part of a concerted effort to upgrade the appearance of the South Park Blocks. For this reason, if TMT improves the streets bordering SPB5, the City would likely remove those improvements...To avoid waste and needless duplication, PP&R and TMT wish to amend the Coordination Agreement to have TMT make temporary street improvements and pay the City $140,000 in lieu of providing permanent street improvements. Parks will use these funds, together with other funding sources, to construct the permanent streets. >>> This follows the Council agenda item on the donation. TMT development (Tom Moyers, possibly the "anonymous donor"?) no longer has to replace the street improvements but instead will pay $140,000 toward them along with "other funding sources" i.e. taxpayers. If you think about how expensive street improvements are, especially downtown, sorta sounds like a quid pro quo to me? :-) The street improvements are NOT included in the Parks Bureau's budget, and nothing in the ordinance suggests how much those costs may be. Also... <<< NOW, THEREFORE, the Council directs: a. The Director of Parks is authorized to execute on behalf of the City the First Amendment to Coordination Agreement and any other amendments to the Coordination Agreement necessary, in the Director's judgment, to achieve <<< A blank check to achieve what? The ordinance --at least as I saw it posted-- doesn't say...
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Very interesting, Frank -

Submitted by Amanda Fritz on December 18, 2007 - 7:21am.
Very interesting, Frank - thank you. Reminds me of the deal on the Greenway improvements in South Waterfront, where developers put in "temporary" improvements then the City has to figure out how to pay for permanent ones. Which, in South Waterfront, has meant out that two developers have paid over a million dollars in "temporary" improvements. That seems like "waste and needless duplication" to me. Why not require developers everywhere to pay full-cost fees into a fund designated for street/pedestrian improvements at/near the location of their project, pending the right time to actually install them?
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I remember when this city

Submitted by dave lister on December 18, 2007 - 1:27pm.
I remember when this city paved over its first set of streetcar tracks and I believe I will live to see it pave over the second set. Dave Lister
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In other areas I have worked

Submitted by Mary Huff on December 19, 2007 - 6:12am.
In other areas I have worked generally the developer puts in the amenities and infrastructure (streets and parks in particular) as part of their conditional use permit. This is the case in Vancouver BC the example we seem to look to constantly for high density living. This only makes sense as the site is torn up anyway, and it is much more cost effective to rebuild the entire site at the same time and not do el-cheapo temporary fixes. Since the contractor is building it on his dime, there is not a blank check effect, and if you have good City Building inspectors, which we have some good ones here in town, the amenity gets built right. Obviously the old rule of the value of real estate "Location Location Location" is greatly enhanced by amenities, so the developer benefits from the investment. The rest of the City does not pay for this, the people who make the profit do. My favorite quote from the article. "In exchange for the rights to build 2,800 condos and apartments, the developer built an elementary school, a sports field complex, a day-care facility and community center." “Everything that you see here, including every blade of grass, was paid for by the developer,” he said, with obvious pride. http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=115889386528643100 I wish Portland officials would have more "obvious pride" when negotiating these deals on behalf of the average taxpayer and citizen. I read the link to Bog, PDC's budget has grown 80% over the last five years as compared with the city planners budget decreasing 25% and Parks decreasing 4% despite some pretty expensive to maintain parks going on line in the Pearl, and the average per captia spending on PDC at $300/head is only second to Police. and spending on Parks at less than 1/3 of that amount. That means Amanda for your family of 5 you contributed $1500 this year to PDC and less than $500 for your parks city wide.
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Took my visiting son and his

Submitted by FrankDufay on December 23, 2007 - 6:41am.
Took my visiting son and his girlfriend to Dragonfish for lunch yesterday, across from the park site. Parked in the new parking garage extension (where you get to come out of the elevator in the middle of the new park...now just a muddy lot). Only paid $8.50 for our two hours of parking 'cause it's a Saturday, but the regular toll is $5.00 an hour. (With a maximum of $16 a day.) That's quite the cash cow... Maybe instead of an across-the-board fee to property and business owners, we could crank the parking meter rates along these lines to pay for transportation infrastructure.
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