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by Richard Ellmyer
Members of the Friends of Urban Renewal have argued that the expansion violated state laws requiring that urban renewal funds to be spent to eliminate blight. [They got that right.]
In a vote trading power play engineered by and for the purpose of enhancing the personal political capital of former city commissioner Erik Sten, the Portland city council commandeered 30 percent of Urban Renewal Area funds from the Portland Development Commission for so-called “affordable” housing. About 90% of this public money will actually be used for PUBLIC Housing in neighborhoods that are already overloaded with PUBLIC Housing. A fact mayor Adams is doing his best to conceal.
The Portland Development Commission and now the new owners of 42 employees and more than 100 million in tax payer PUBLIC Housing dollars i.e. the Portland city council, have refused since November 13, 2008 to respond or even acknowledge the request from several organizations namely, the Argay Neighborhood Association, the Portsmouth Residents Action Committee, the North Portland Business Association, the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area Advisory Committee and the Lents Neighborhood Association to cap URA money for PUBLIC Housing in neighborhoods with 15 percent or more public housing clients especially and particularly the Portsmouth neighborhood which is indisputably overloaded with the highest total and the second highest percentage of public housing clients of any neighborhood in Multnomah county.
Mayor Sam Adams has kept his conscription of all of the PDC employees and 100 million plus dollars that came with them OUT of the Bureau of Housing budget so that no one can find them to challenge his use of these public employees and the public money that came with them from PDC.
The Friends of Urban Renewal are quite right and have a solid argument to challenge the use of URA funds to build schools (the statutory responsibility of the state legislature and the school board NOT city hall) much less build them in satellite non-URA districts. Multnomah county chair Ted Wheeler is quite right and has solid arguments to challenge Portland’s use of URA funds. Portland’s URA excesses, its lack of transparency, accountability and its personal political power struggles negatively affect Multnomah county’s starving budget and the 700,000 citizens it serves. The Portland city council has lost its way and is now out of control with regard to its handling of URA districts and funding.
The city of Portland has grandly overreached. It’s mission creep is endangering the adequate funding of essential services that are the city’s fundamental responsibilities, such as providing potable water, wastewater removal, public safety and road repair.
Taxpayers, voters, the press, business communities, neighborhoods overloaded with public housing, Multnomah county and the Oregon legislature need to reevaluate the conditions under which they allow the Portland city council to create Urban Renewal Areas and spend the money which comes from those creations.
Richard Ellmyer is a Portsmouth Residents Action Committee - Leader.
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