Now you see it, now you don't (Jack Bog's Blog)

The cloud of foul-smelling emissions surrounding the new Portland transportation tax (coming soon to your water bill) gets thicker and stinkier by the day. Now it seems that although the City Council still plans to put the new tax up for a public vote in November, they'll be delaying taking formal action to do so until after the mayoral election in May.

Remember when the "fee" was so urgent that it had to be passed without a public vote? That James Monroe would have wanted it that way? Remember when the council had a change of heart and said it was going to play like grownups? Refer the tax to the voters now, and face the music for the next eight months? Well, all that's on hold because Sam the Tram's running for mayor, and he wants you to forget that he's in charge of this fiasco.

Or who knows? Maybe one day soon we'll open our water bills and find the tax on there, as he's figured out a way to slip it onto the books without anyone noticing. Or maybe he'll just wait 'til Grampy's gone and ram the whole thing through on the second of January, with no vote at all.

If you think the vote manipulations are infantile, wait until he's mayor and this sort of thing becomes a weekly occurrence. Never before has this once-great city been jerked around so badly. Vera Katz will look like Mary Poppins in comparison.

Comments (3)

There's no way I'm voting for Sam Adams at this point, no matter what happens with the city transportation tax. Is there a write-in candidate yet? Can we draft Jeff Cogen, or someone like him?

Posted by Grumpy | February 25, 2008 8:56 AM

How discouraging! So, if Adams gets 50% or more in the May primary, he can pretty much wait a while, feint a new emergency, and then have city hall pass the fee without a referral. If he doesn't get 50% or more, he can table the referral until after the November election. He can also do his trick of breaking it up into numerous ordinances in either case, complicating the citizen petitioning process.

Sho has to show a lot more to get elected mayor than he's shown so far. There should be a "none of the above" line on the ballot so as to toss out the existing candidates and start over. P.S, I hear write-in candidates are ignored by the vote counters in the election office.

Posted by Bob Clark | February 25, 2008 9:33 AM

I noticed the BOREGONIAN had yet another hit item on the Dozono campaign poll this morning. Sho seems to be running a very weak campaign thus far. It certainly looks like the ZERO is trying hard to get SAM THE SCAM ELECTED - especially since this poll nonsense is simply a lot of hot air about nothing to most people.

Posted by Dave A. | February 25, 2008 9:40 AM

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Monday, February 25, 2008

Now you see it, now you don't

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