"This time they say it's going to create 1500 new jobs" you bet!

750 Hotdog sellers, their assistants and they will all pay a vendor fee plus parking.

This is it for me. I encourage everyone to vote against the metro park bond measure. If they are going to try and tax me for a multi-million dollar public hotel, why should I give them any money. Next will be a billion for a public financed baseball stadium to cover the losses of the hotel, just as the argument for the hotel will be to cover the convention center fiasco. I see this train a-coming.

I know you may think the South Waterfront (SoWhat) development is morally bankrupt, but I wasn't aware it was technically bankrupt in a monetary sense.

Vote against the parks bond because you're mad about the Convention Center? That's like refusing to go to a restaurant because you don't like three of the nine things on the menu.

Inaccurate analogy. If a restaurant delivers a plate of food you didn't order they take it back free of charge. If they don't they lose customers. A vote against the metro bond is the same as choosing not to return to a restaurant because they don't listen to their customers. A few of their menu items may be tasty but in general they are overpriced and leave you with indigestion. They don't care what their constituency orders and everything is priced as "market" with the cost adjusting each bite.

The SoWhat development is bankrupt in the sense that it is wildly over budget, and "no funding sources have been identified" for some of the basic infrastructure needs that are part of the basic plan for the place.

How can Portland ever go bankrupt if the citizens consistently support tax increases?

have any portlanders heard of the scandals in new jersey?

the mayor of newark and the medical school (umdnj) scandal....

as a visitor from new jersey (really, 3 weeks max), i sure hope portland will not end up like new jersey...for the cruel joke is democrat voters screwed by their own party !!!

If I'm going to be taxed to build a hotel, then I want some equity. And comps...Like Vegas, baby: free rooms, free drinks, free shows.

If we just allowed the tribes to convert the convention center into a casino, the hotel would pay for itself and the city/county share of the take (ahem) -- I mean participation and taxes -- would let them open Wapato and pay the public employees even more generous salary and benefits.

C'mon Fireman Randy: if we could fully fund the Fire and Police Department sRetirement plan with a destination casino and no direct taxes on Portland's citizens, you wouldn't say no? Would you?

This is it for me. I encourage everyone to vote against the metro park bond measure. If they are going to try and tax me for a multi-million dollar public hotel, why should I give them any money.

Maybe we should stop feeding the animals at the zoo, too? After all, that's METRO's baby as well.

Let's deal with the issue of the Convention Center on its own. This bad idea --and METRO'S got lots of 'em--doesn't cancel out the value of saving open spaces in our rapidly (too rapidly) densifying area.

This really pis**es me off. Another boondoggle like PGE park. Why should we have to pay foran ugly ass convention hotel for the business sector when those that want it have the money to build it themselves? Talk about welfare!
1500 jobs? The powers that be really think we're a bunch of sheep.

Frank,
I think the problem here not enough people realize or accept that the same people pushing while lying about the CC hotel and other boondoggles like SoWa (and other UR schemes) are the same people who are promoting the rest of our transportation and land use policies, leading to the overcrowding congested mess we have.

The new Metro measure is another snow job. Few park facilities will actually result from it while millions will be poured into the coffers of the regions bad planning cabal with their activists groups getting handed millions to help continue bad policies such as this hotel and the upcoming transit mall.

It's all about Metro getting more money to sustain the status quo.
They'll syphon millions off the new bond money for administrative costs, distribute (pay off) millions to the local "community groups", increase the already abundant government real estate holdings, cause additional overcrowding of our region, neglect the needs of growth and further retard the ability of the region to recover from the damage they have already done.

By increasing the funding for the Metro Status quo and their activist groups every effort to bring about better planning will be thwarted.
The Columbia Crossing will be forced to include light rail, the Sunrise corridor will be intentionally congested, Sellwood bridge rebuild without traffic relief,
no 217 expansion will occur, no I-5/99 connector will be built, more light rail,
Transit oriented development and Urban renewal schemes will suck up basic services resources and we'll have a few more acres of wetlands which we already have plenty preserved.

SoWa and the Beaverton Round are big success stories accourding to the Metro propoganda machine.
If you buy that by all means vote for their new scam measure.

With all the needs and money issues on the ballot this is by far the most ill-advised and least needed.

Frank of course the animals should be fed. Personally I would feed them the developers, planning bureau and the Goldschmidt Gang. You keep falling for the densitification machine scam, which is self induced and you know damn well this is only the lead up to the baseball stadium. Hell even Paul Allen will be in on this one. The mayor has it right. NO PUBLIC Financed Hotel OR Stadium

It's all about Metro getting more money to sustain the status quo.

I don't get, Steve, how saving land from development represents the "status quo" or even how it contributes to density and congestion.

At any rate, its one thing to take a stand against the measure because you don't support its outcome. I respect that opinion. What I think is silly is to oppose the measure because of something unrelated, like the Convention Center Hotel. I just can't buy that METRO folks are evil and everything they do, therefore, becomes tainted and unclean.

I agree with you sometimes, Steve, and on some things I don't. METRO does good things, and bad things, as, I suspect do most of us.

I'd love to see major league baseball in Portland. And usually I think Jack sarcastically misuses the word "socialism"...but METRO owning a hotel? I don't think that's the role of government. What's next, renting rooms by the hour?

I'd hate to see major league baseball. It would just be more welfare for those who don't need it (baseball team owners, players, developers, etc. you name it, if there's money to be mooched the usual suspects - wealthy sleazeballs who know how to play the game - will be there with their hands out) courtesy of PORTLAND taxpayers. Sure, Portland residents will pay and pay and pay for the cheapskates outside the city to benefit. AS USUAL.
Hello? Maybe we taxpayers should get a chance to payoff the PGE Park payoff first.

Frank said,
"""I'd love to see major league baseball in Portland"""

Too bad Portland is wasting every dime for a stadium on SoWa cost overruns alone.

Something which Metro fully condones.

That's what you don't get. Metro is fully connected to the most eggregious decisions this region has made and the waste they directly or indirectly cause is massive.
I contend they are also wholy dishonest
in their efforts to continue the status quo with their new measure.
Right along with TriMet the perpetual schemes and con jobs are moving along unabated.