When does Randy's measure to raise property taxes start to hit or affect this number? This was his solution last year to raise property taxes for only 30+ years to pay for PFDR.

Why do we even let these people near money when they have no clue?

Randy knows and knew exactly what he was and is doing when it comes to the union label.
As a firefighter union officer, legislator and commissioner he has perpetrated a fiscal assault on the taxpayers while adoring fans fell for his schtick.
They just love him. He's so Randy.

Here's something people need to understand:

The police and fire pension and disability fund is like a preferred creditor. It gets first dibs on all the property tax money. They call it compression.

What it means is this:

You may have voted for the childrens levy, or the parks levy and expect that's where your money will go. If the FPD&R comes up short, they will take that money. It is happening already in some neighborhoods.

Here's how you can tell if it is happening to you:

Take the millage rate you approved with your vote for, say, the childrens levy and compare it with how much is actually itemized on your property tax statement. If it is less, the difference is going to the FPD&R.

At least we haven't paid into a fund "managed" by Oppenheimer.

Albatri?

"The police and fire pension and disability fund is like a preferred creditor. It gets first dibs on all the property tax money."

I think that goes for all employee benefits. In effect, all the stuff taxpayers want (better schools, roads, infrastructure) are now bottom-of-the-list stuff after these top line obligations.

You have to add several more items to the "preferred creditor" list.

Like public employee "cost of living" increases, when there are no increases.

And public employee "severance packages" when they leave, even if they have committed at least misbehavior.

And public employee salary increases based on "in house" committees reviewing other "similar" job benefits, salaries inside or outside of government.

There are a lot of bonds that have lower payments in the earlier years and that escalate in later years. Think of it as like modified-lump-sum light, or like buying a house with a loan that has a 5 year or 10 year balloon payment. Throw caution to the wind and chant "God will provide."

I do wish you would adopt my view that any pay change, at the time of the change, must be accompanied by a documented estimate of the present value of the stream of future payments that directly result from the change; and are contemporaneously broken out for each individual to which it would apply. Without such documentation it would be (is) absurd to assert that there was any rudimentary meeting of the minds associated with any subsequent contract claim.

Deception is not a valid public purpose, it is a crime that is on the books today. Randy can plead ignorance, and win. How's that for a fine bureaucratic incentive?

Portland is bankrupt but Sam the Scam doesn't dare admit it or else he won't get any new toys to play with.

At some point someone will point out that the city is bankrupt and then the wailing will begin. In hindsight it will all be so obvious that we shouldn't have spent so much money on choo choo trains and "sustainability".

I have a general question about Urban Renewal districts that I have not seen addressed. When these districts are created, they always claim that they have a limited life. Has there ever been an UR district in Oregon that went out of existence at the end of its originally proposed lifespan? Or do these districts become perpetual operations, despite their original promises?

Can anyone address this? How can I get information about the history of UR districts in Oregon?

davidg:

I'm not sure where you can get all the information, but plenty of them have been properly sunsetted like they are supposed to. When my dad was driving a chevy with fins, they did the South Auditorium. It ended.

These unending URA's are a rather recent phenomenon, historically speaking, pretty much since the Katz administration.

Both Davids: I believe that for Portland there has been only one URA that ended-South Auditorium that began in 1957. All others have continued and many beyond their expiration dates with "modifications". For Portland it seems "blight" can never end, but we tout ourselves as the city to emulate. I would suggest calling the League of Oregon Cities or whatever it is called,and they may have some information of urban renewal districts that have been employed by cities and counties throughout Oregon and their expiration dates.

All but truce?

... can't get loose / without that juice ... there's only so much oil in the ground, in the ground / when it's gone there'll be no more around, no more around ...

---
And seriously, an education in the Comments. (Except, any "chevy with fins" [dorsal?] is only needed on a levee which floods.) Why doesn't our mass media provide us such comprehensions and understandings?

Small wonder that reasoned readers dump newspapers for the chronicles of web logs.

Again I think we need (so it's inevitable) to have a sort of 'citizenship' or 'civics' test, an examination to pass in order to register to vote. And mutual tutoring (of, by, and for ourselves) to achieve a required, preset goal of 100% of us passing the test, 100% registering, and 100% voting. (... and all the children above average.)

Then, I'd expect we'd still be electing Randy's and Sam's but at least we wouldn't have LIARS to kick us around any more.

My revolutionary Motto of the Month persists, insisting:
No taxation without explanation.

Jerry,
I'm not going to argue with you because I really don't know for sure, but wasn't the Memorial Coliseum done as a URA?

The expansion of Urban Renewal/TIF has far out paced any of the sunsetting.

Which makes whatever sunsetting that has occured meaningless, essentially, because as some (TIF) increment revenue retuned to the taxing jurisdictions many times that amount was diverted with new UR schemes.

It's sort of like your boss sunsetting a job related payroll reduction while adding many more new ones.
Your check keeps getting smaller.

12,000 acres of Portland have propoerty taxes diverted for UR with city wide taxpayers also contributing.

Some $4 Billion in assessed real estate value and the taxes it generates never makes it to ANY basic services.

Instead it goes to pay off the UR borrowng that funds not only the UR plans but the PDC agency itself.

An entire agency with hundreds of employees funded with borrowed money that must be paid, with interest, from property taxes.
Marvelous.

payroll 'deduction'

Dave,
I don't think the Memorial Coliseum was completed under a URA. It was added to the Lloyd District URA (from PDC research) was formed in 1989 and has been extended, revised two times since.

This district now extends from the river to NE 14th, to NE Schuler to I-84, and includes all of Lloyd Center and surrounding buildings, Rose Garden, all not paying taxes towards schools, police, fire, roads, sidewalks, non-sexual potholes, etc.

That would be "gender neutral" potholes.

Dave, correct:
Lloyd District extends to NE 16th, and one block north of Schuyler to NE Hancock for a large portion.

The Central Eastside URA extends from the Lloyd District URA all the way south to SE Powell/Ross Island Bridge, then from river to SE 12th. So, much of inner eastside Portland is "BLIGHTED". 25 blocks on average east to west and 50 blocks north to south in our inner east side is in urban renewal, not contributing tax dollars to what is needed today or many decades to come or if at all.

What is also interesting is the extent of urban renewal on the west side. The three inner districts of River District, Downtown, and South Waterfront/North Macadam extends from ten blocks north of the Fremont Bridge to the south into John's Landing near the Sellwood Bridge. These include most of the designated area called Central City in planner jargon.

Blight is everywhere and we need to attack this insidious cancer.