Crooks. Plain and Simple. Nick detective work.

They cancel meetings for two reasons, either they don't like what the committee will say at the meeting, or the committee is tired of coming to pointless meetings.

It could be something interesting or nothing at all.

Oh, it's that 90% of PDC is on vacation in August and you know without PDC staff present the Committee can't be "controlled", err I mean "guided" so they just cancel the meetings. That, or the committee actually wised up and listened to the rational trade-off and problems associated with URAs that Ted Wheeler presented to the press a couple of weeks ago. I'm hoping its the latter but I'm not holding my breath.

And Jack, sorry to report the Central City SUPERSIZE ME URA, or whatever they are calling it this week has been in the planning since at least 2005 - ever since the City realized they are pretty much tapped out and the only way to drum up some dough for additional pet projects is to expand the geographic area and borrow more from the ever shrinking pile of TIF available to the City.

That URA is an effing joke - a big, expensive, risky tax payer sponsored joke, also possibly illegal. And trust me, there are going to be lawsuits over it...Hello LUBA.

That said, this does give Ted Wheeler a terrific opportunity to show PDC he has the strength to smack them back down where they belong.

It's time for the city's TIF addiction to end so they can focused on some solid, stable and equitable revenue options.

Jack,
Brilliant use of a song lyric here in the title of the post. It's a woman singing about a lost man and the second line is, "One less egg to fry."

Have you ever heard of any man who just ate one fried egg for breakfast? That number is unrealistic and understates the final amount.

Just like the city's budget numbers.

Brilliant.

Someone sent this along -- makes me think that the rot starts with the head (Leonard) and goes down to the tail. This guy has an amazing set of brass ones:

4) Hallberg v. City of Portland Case No.: A134727 http://www.publications.ojd.state.or.us/A134727.htm

AREA OF LAW: CIVIL PROCEDURE

HOLDING: (Opinion by Landau, P.J.) – A public employee who prevails on a
lawsuit by asserting that the claim did not arise during the course of
employment is judicially estopped from initiating an action against the
employer for indemnity of legal expenses by asserting a position
inconsistent with that asserted during the original claim.

Hallberg, a former housing inspector, had prevailed on a previous lawsuit.
A homeowner had claimed that Hallberg had denied the homeowner due process by condemning his home. According to the homeowner, this caused him to default on his mortgage and lose the home, which Hallberg later bought. The trial court granted summary judgment in Hallberg’s favor based on Hallberg’s assertions that the foreclosure was the result of the homeowner's family’s actions rather than the result of Hallberg acting as a housing inspector. Hallberg then initiated an indemnification suit against his former employer, the city of Portland (Portland), claiming the previous suit arose out of his employment. The trial court granted
summary judgment to Portland, ruling that the previous suit did not arise
from Hallberg’s employment. The Court of Appeals held that Hallberg was judicially estopped from indemnity from Portland because his claim was factually inconsistent with claims he made defending the previous suit on which he had prevailed. Affirmed.