Does Portland council have votes for baseball stadium?

by Mark Larabee, The Oregonian - Thursday May 21, 2009, 8:13 PM

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2009/05/does_portland_council_have_vot.html

"The city would take the money from one or both of two funds in the renewal area: one set aside for economic development and the other set aside for housing.

To allow the deal, Leonard said last week that he will propose changing a city requirement to use 30 percent of a renewal area's money for housing. Instead, he wants the requirement to apply citywide rather than for each renewal district."

Just in case there was any doubt that three votes on the Portland city council can undo anything, including, we hope, its illegitimate decision to giveaway without due process the John Ball School property to a private corporation, consider the council's new found willingness to transfer the 30% URA housing set aside for a sports arena. This is the same city council that ignored the Portsmouth Residents Action Committee, the North Portland Business Association and the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area Advisory Committee when they all supported a letter to the Portland Development Commission to:

A. Stop all future ICURAAC funding, including the 30% set aside, for public housing in the Portsmouth neighborhood.

B. Stop all future ICURAAC funding, including the 30% set aside, to ICURAAC neighborhoods with more than 15% public housing.

C. Redirect all future ICURAAC funding, including the 30% set aside, to ICURAAC neighborhoods with less than 15% public housing.


"Another contentious issue is the use of a city park for a private enterprise. The Portland Parks Board opposes the idea. It's citizen members have urged a "no net loss" philosophy, and, at minimum, want the council to require replacement of the park land.

"This would represent a sea change for Portland, a city that has been historically tenacious in its protection of public open and parks spaces," said Keith Thomajan, a Parks Board member who also was on the city's Major League Soccer task force."

Just in case there was any doubt that three votes on the Portland city council can undo any policy, including, we hope. its illegitimate decision to giveaway without due process the public John Ball School property to a private corporation, consider the council's willingness to deceitfully purchase the public John Ball School property from the Portland School Board, which sold this public asset to the city of Portland with the understanding that the property would remain in public use, and then proceeded, without due process, to hand the site over to a private corporation for a non-public use.

"At a meeting of the Lents Neighborhood Association this week, Leonard faced tough questions from opponents, who in a straw poll, outnumbered supporters of the idea. Their chief complaints were about traffic, parking and the diversion of urban renewal money.

The group recently surveyed neighborhood residents. Of the roughly 900 who answered, 37 percent said they supported the stadium "very much" and 25 percent said "somewhat." Six percent said they "somewhat did not support it" and 23 percent didn't "at all." But that was before the plan called for using $42.3 million from the area's urban renewal money."

Just in case there was any doubt that three votes on the Portland city council can undo any policy, including, we hope, its illegitimate decision to giveaway without due process the public John Ball School property to a private corporation, consider the council's deliberate failure to inform much less survey and discuss with North Portland property owners, business owners and taxpayers their concerns regarding the disposition of the publicly owned John Ball School property.

"Commissioner Nick Fish, who heads the Housing Bureau, has protested, saying the idea represents a major shift in Portland's commitment to affordable housing."

Nick Fish, who opposed allowing elected officials and taxpayers access to public housing statistical data when a member of the Housing Authority of Portland board, has expanded his secreting of public data to include the Bureau of Housing. Fish continues to deny that public housing exists in Portland much less admit that the majority of the BH budget is spent on public housing.

The level of hypocrisy and denial by the Portland city council when it comes to anything connected to public housing policy is staggering. In the end, of course, it all falls upon Portland's mayor, Sam Adams. The lying, obfuscation and deceit on all matters relating to public housing policy point directly to Portland's mayor, Sam Adams. It is mayor Adams who is responsible and must and will be held accountable for the actions of those he has the authority to dismiss. He alone allows his appointed HAP commissioners and his appointed BH manager Nick Fish to hold positions which enable them to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on public housing and withhold public housing statistical data without public accountability.


Richard Ellmyer