Mayor Sam Adams has indicated to his appointees on the Portland Development Commission that they are to grant 1.5 million tax dollars to the private Bridge Meadows Corporation. They are to do this under cover of darkness without citizen involvement and public discussion. Why? Because the North Portland Business Association, the Portsmouth Residents Action Committee, the Portsmouth Neighborhood Association and the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area Advisory Committee have repeatedly testified against this project and/or the continued use of PDC funds for new public housing in the Portsmouth neighborhood. If you invite these serious players they will howl with indignation that more taxpayer dollars are being spent against their will and their community interests. Sorry, Sam, but we noticed.

One would think that in the midst of a recall effort that mayor Adams would be inclined to put his best foot forward. Instead, he continues to blithely demonstrate the hubris that got him into trouble in the first place.

This latest indefensible, behind the scenes scheming by Sam Adams reduces trust in our so-called progressive city government and the Portland Development Commission, that they will demonstrate due process BEFORE making major decisions of policy especially those related to the spending of public funds and the disposition of public property.

This latest indefensible, behind the scenes scheming by Sam Adams reduces trust in our so-called progressive city government that it will encourage and value citizen involvement.

This latest indefensible, behind the scenes scheming by Sam Adams shatters any illusion that PDC is an independent public institution, rendering the value of its public involvement efforts dubious at best.

The Bridge Meadows Corporation failed to meet the first legal deadline for raising sufficient capital. Instead of saying, "you failed to meet your financial obligations within the time period stated in the resolution passed by the city council therefore we are terminating the contract," Adams said, "Never mind. You can have access to city property anyway without meeting the minimal financial requirements."

Now, the private Bridge Meadows Corporation, that assured everyone that it had private capital to spare, wants and needs 1.5 million dollars in taxpayer funding to move their indefensible, publicly polluted process, private corporate project forward. Truly outrageous. But not unexpected. Struggling to find the capital will be nothing compared to the challenge to sustain operating funds. Standing in the wings the Housing Authority of Portland is poised to eventually take over this ill considered project when the current actors of the Bridge Meadows Corporation weary of this bad play and the hostile audience surrounding their stage.

Sam Adams is so enmeshed with secret deals involving Dan Saltzman and the Public Housing Mafia that he still cannot bring himself to use the words, "Public Housing" and explain why the Housing Authority of Portland, over which he has total and singular control, refuses to give him more than 19,000 incomplete records when it claims to have more than 33,000 clients. Adams has purposely buried public housing statistical data so deep in his newly created Bureau of Housing that even he doesn't have a clue where and on whom more than a hundred million dollars of our money is being spent in our city. If there was ever an opportunity for government waste, fraud and abuse it's right here. Sam Adams is the coverup king that is committed to making sure nobody finds it. 

A mayor that is this dishonest with Portlanders with such demonstrated disrespect for due process and citizen involvement in their government has no business being in public office in our city. Support the recall. Seek out and sign the petition. http://www.citizenrecall.org/joomla/

 

Richard Ellmyer