I wonder how they got themselves in such bad shape. With 80% of the budget being spent on police & fire it surely isn't from wild government spending on new programs. I found out in another location that it is formerly the home of a naval ship yard. Perhaps with no industry to speak of the City Council could never bring themselves to tell the voters the truth. Namely that your average voting taxpayer consumes more in government services than they pay in taxes.

Greg C

Ps I keep hearing that but I have never seen a study that purports to prove it conclusively.

Can't the Portland city council simply raise any new fee or tax they choose in order to cover the Piper?

I mean who's going to throw them out of office, the gays, public employess and bike/enviros who re-elect them?

Someone please dream up and describe a scenario where officials are thrown out of office and responsible policy making comes about.

Ps I keep hearing that but I have never seen a study that purports to prove it conclusively.

That's what faith is all about - you've got it, brother!

Amen

As the property tax burden (and related surcharges and fees, on water, new development, and businesses) rises, middle income taxpayers and retirees will be forced to move to cheaper housing.

Barbara:

Yes, the city and county can always raise taxes (especially if the voters are willing to support new bond measures) and they continue to benefit from the annual 3% in property taxes. And tax averse property owners will continue to vote with their feet.

It's already happening, but will likely accelerate in the next 5 to 10 years. Portland will be left with high income earners (who will bear the majority of the tax burden) and the underclass (mostly renters, or those living in subsidized/tax abated housing) who have less housing mobility.

The surrounding counties (especially Clark) will benefit from the Portland/MultCo exodus, as they have already benefitted over the past 20 years.

You're right Barbara, it's all the gay, bike-riding public employees that are to blame. Something really should be done. But how are the rest of us supposed to stand up to all the gays, bike riders, and public employees? It's truly hopeless. I'm moving to Lake Oswego.

As they said in the article "its the bloated union contracts", and it somewhat applies to Portland.

Vallejo just needs to call in the urban renewal bandits to solve their problems-another way to borrow money without the taxpayers even knowing their additional debt obligations.

"The problem is basically bloated union contracts," Shively said."

Good luck, I've never heard of give-backs by a public union yet. Maybe they shoudl do a 30+ year special prop tax levy like we do for the FPDR.

Bankruptcy, it'll never happen here - so on with that $220 million a mile light rail, let's add another street car - and hey, one tram seems out of balance, we'll build another one just to balance out the landscape. Whadda ya say Portland, let's go into bankruptcy in STYLE!!!!

Wait, maybe if they build a streetcar or MAX, it will save the city? Thats what is happening here, right? All that new development because of the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for trains?

"All that new development because of the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for trains?"
That's such a myth.

As repeated over and over again across the region the truth is:

"It would seem to be bad news all around for the city's hopes of creating a new downtown around MAX light rail."

This is another Cascade Station flop with many millions in tax dollars wasted.
and more to follow
http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/stories/index.ssf?/base/metro_west_news/1203485103277080.xml&coll=7

Beaverton Round setbacks,
the Round is behind schedule
Developer lost financial backing
developer at Round at Beaverton Central behind schedule
company in default for the second time.

The city and Metro paid $4.9 million in 2005 for the new site.
goal is to develop a $100 million mixed-use development similar to the Round,
But the Round is unfinished, with three buildings out of seven yet to be built.

City leaders are mulling their next move
lender filed a foreclosure notice in Washington County
control of several buildings to a New York City hedge fund.

The Round has struggled since 1997, when the city sold the former site for mixed use

first developer declared bankruptcy,

Vallejo, like most California cities, has an economic development department with enterprise zones, a downtown restoration program, etc., all of which suck up property taxes (tax-increment financing) that voters expect to be used for fire and policy and spends them on subsidies to developers instead.

See http://www.ci.vallejo.ca.us/GovSite/default.asp?serviceID1=155 for more info.

I don't know how much this contributed to Vallejo's impending bankruptcy, but it is a strong parallel with Portland.

I meant "fire and police" not "fire and policy." Sorry.

“Vallejo’s All the Rage”? Something must have gone wrong. Must have been Urban Renewal.

http://www.policylink.org/pdfs/BrookingsGentrification.pdf

c. Vallejo and East Palo Alto

According to a January, 2000 San Francisco Chronicle story, the situation is quite different in

Vallejo, a North Bay community two hours by road but one hour by ferry from San Francisco during

commute time. Long a conservative military community linked to the adjacent Mare Island naval

base, the town prepared for the worst when Mare Island was slated for closure in the mid-‘90s. In

1996 the city of about 100,000 lost nearly 10,000 jobs, housing values nose-dived, and the city’s

economic priority was keeping its massive but troubled theme park in black ink. Median home prices

are now half those in San Francisco.73

In 1998 the Vallejo-to-San Francisco ferry route opened, and San Francisco’s financial

district became a comfortable commute away. Over the past 18 months, a steady stream of former

city dwellers—many of them gay—has relocated to Vallejo, bought and rehabbed its architecturally

significant Victorian and Craftsman housing with magnificent Bay views, and joined the community

wholeheartedly. In fact, Gary Cloutier, an openly gay lawyer won election to the Vallejo City Council

in November, 1999. That gay households would form the cutting edge of gentrification in Vallejo is

no surprise: Gay and lesbian families, as well as artists, empty-nesters and twenty-somethings tend

to be pioneers in many gentrifying communities nationwide, according to our case studies and

research cited earlier.

Ironically, while some of Vallejo’s neighborhoods are receiving an influx of higher-income

newcomers, its relatively affordable housing stock and proximity to San Francisco also make it a

target destination for low-income residents who are being displaced by gentrification in other parts of

the Bay Area.

“Vallejo’s All the Rage,” San Francisco Chronicle, January 14, 2000, p. A1.