Memory fails me. Can you give some background on Sam Adams's role in SoWa?

He was Vera Katz's "economic development" expert...




Bwahahahaha!

I was sitting here doing my monthly bills when I saw that my Bank of America credit card balance of $337.00 was now overdue. I had hoped to have a big garage sale by now to pay this outstanding balance by now, but solid buyers have been hard to find lately. My old stuff is not really worth very much anyway. I have enlisted the help of WMF (Wife for Manganging Finances) to negotiate with B Of A for a two year extension. Wish us luck and thanks to Portland for another good idea.

Gibby

Bank of America already has it's hands full with the consequences of the Countrywide purchase. CEO Ken Lewis has been trying hard to put lipstick on this pig of a deal on Wall Street.

Uh, Mr Bojack sir, they do have a plan - this is the reason they are selling the parking meters . . .

Is Charles Wesely Rhodes getting his counsultant fees paid in future commissary credit? Is he getting a bonus for recon work ?

the reason they are selling the parking meters

They're not really selling them. They're going to sell them and lease them back -- which is just another way of borrowing against them.

City Hall is putting the entire city into hock, big time. Now they can't pay their bills and are asking for extensions. It won't be long before a big hole opens up somewhere -- one too big for them to talk around.

When you hear the word "visionary", put your hand on your wallet, and back slowly out of the room.

But you see, Jack, Portland is different. I'm sure that Sam Adams is borrowing against those million new residents he expects to show up any day now, and his backup plan is probably to have assistants go down to the grocery store to buy lots and lots of lottery tickets if those millions of new chefs and groovy retail salespeople don't show. It's going to be years before anyone pulls the plug on that Innsmouth West mess, because any day now everything's going to turn around. You'll see: the same idea worked for Cleveland and Pittsburgh, too.

Don, if you are serious with your question on what Sam had to do with SoWhat, here are some quickies:

Sam has almost 16 years of meetings, voting, staff advisement, policy wonk reports serving with Katz and as commissioner on SoWhat.

Sam is commissioner of PDOT responsible
for the tram, two trolley extensions, all infrastructure building in SoWhat.

Sam is commissioner responsible for the Gibb St. pedestrian/bike bridge.

Sam is responsible for all street, freeway ramp, transportation portals (3) throughout SoWhat.

Sam is responsible for the future Milwaukie Light Rail through SoWhat

And all of these projects totaling over $480 Million of taxpayer dollars $90M (spent and $390M obligated)are mostly under Sam's authority.

He's like Bush, he's responsible for everything.

In case that last sentence was meant to be sarcasm, I would agree that you can't blame ONLY Sam Adams for what has already gone wrong in that district, but I see no reason to cut him any slack when he apparently has no desire to stop the bleeding now (and continues to promote it as a "successful" development and a model for other areas of town). That sounds a lot like the current Bush approach to the war to me.

Mike, I don't think that last sentence was sarcasm. I think Lee is serious that Sam has great responsiblity in the whole development of that neighborhood (as Mayor Katz's key staff, as Commissioner, and soon as Mayor) - particularly the expensive public infrastructure.

Lee, I was serious. Many thanks for the details.

"They're going to sell them and lease them back"

Correct, I forgot to mention the leaseback part of it. My issue is that with all of this pushing cash to the limit, pet projects and topline employee benes are going to be the last things cut.

I am expecting more non-essentials like road repair and anything outside of downtown to get ignored totally.

The O has a take on the story, here. It's all due to the economic downturn, folks. The "planning" was all perfect. Really.

This is all part of the impending Homer Williams implosion. Note how he's all over every angle of this, and how taxpayers are holding his ever-growing, foul-smelling bag. "Urban pioneer," my eye.

It's all due to the economic downturn,
JK: Planning without planning for a downturn is bad planning. Yep, typical Portland planning.

Thanks

Is it possible to get a copy of Homer's latest financials or tax returns? He must have to submit this stuff to do business with the city right? So, at that point it becomes public info. Am I right?

Can we stop calling it SoWhat and start calling it SamWhat? It's a shame he avoided a run off by just 2%, because the crows are coming home to roost and in a few months people are really going to start thinking differently about how City Hall has wrecklessly spent our money for the last 12 years.

Yeah, the "planning" was perfect if the only assumption in your economic forecast was endless prosperity and good times that last forever. Brilliant planning. Way to go Vera, Sam, Randy, Jim, Eric, Tom, Dan, Gretchen, and Gary.

is it too early to start the recall?

They just had the recall and we lost.

Jack, I just read that Oregonian article, and I'm now even more scared. If hotel business is down "just a bit", this means that it's going to be crashing next year, as most conferences and business meetings are scheduled months or years in advance, and they're generally set on a play-or-pay basis. This doesn't mean that people are going to cancel out on previous plans for a business conference: it just means that they'll go through with it this year and then decide not to do so next year. Watch a significant decrease in hotel business starting around August, especially when HR reps go to schedule and find out how expensive plane tickets are going to be.