A bell tower?... in a former swamp (I mean wetlands)....
More "urban planning" at its finest!

No, that would have been a Bell Tower on the site of a Super Stinky dog food plant that taxpayers help close and that to benefit new home developers.

No more truckloads of week-old waste arriving daily from slaughter houses.

However, I suspect that aroma is soon to be replaced with essence of stagnant goose/duck/fish pond.

"Quasimodo Memorial" ! Hahahahaaa, now that is funny.

Wow, that thing looks like it would have been hideous. Second prize for laffs this afternoon goes to the commenter who suggested that "...if you followed the money you'd see this Truax guy is getting his beak wet somewhere along the dollar trail."

Hey, he openly said he'd spend 800,000 or a million of your dollars...without a trace of regret...to finish that obnoxious eyesore, so it's not that far off a supposition, really.

Councilor Truax also was a big supporter of spending the entire $120 million Urban Renewal expansion.

When the council was discussing the $120 million plan, then $18 million plan then $7 million plan on their way to killing the plan entirely, Truax said "We should be doing the whole $120 million. That was the vision. There's no vision in the 18 or 7 million. I want the whole vision or nothing"

Of course the tower would have vital to make sure the vision was noticed.
Otherwise after spending another $120 million plus another $100 million in interest, all from property taxes, people would have riven right by the vision.

But Ed wanted the tower even before the vision.
Hey he could just stand on the corner in a vision suit and encourage people to turn into the commons.

What would make agood vision suit?

FYI-reminder.

This TIF graph

http://bojack.org/images/urbanrenewalgraph.pdf

or
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:TIF_graph.pdf&page=1

which was first revealed here,

http://bojack.org/2010/05/how_urban_renewal_kills_off_li.html

,resulted from the Tualatin Town Hall that killed their Urban Renewal Plan.
The graph was created to refine an arm waving description by a UR opponent.

Anyone facing a Municipal or County Urban Renewal plan should arm themselves with this effective weapon and kill any new plans.

There is no valid use of Tax Increment Financing.

Especially when utilized by the unethical members of our local planning regime.

You know they should change the name from Tax Increment Financing to Tax Excrement Financing

The "Vision Suit" should be a Sleep Country sign-waving employee out at the I-5/ Tualatin exit. For the cost of the $1.5 Million (including debt service cost) for the Bell Tower "attractor", Truax could employ a sign-waver for 250 years: "DOWNTOWN TUALATIN OVER HERE".

Around these parts a building or monument is only good for 50 years (like Memorial Coliseum) , so the Bell Tower replacement cost every 50 years would extend the sign-waver employment forever. I'd run for Tualatin Council on that premise and win.

I must say that this blog had much to do with stopping the Federal Building Greenwall. There were many great posts with critiques that explained well the impractical aspects of the wall in common sense fashion. That is why "transparency" that Sam and others call for is so necessary. Huh? -like the Federal Immigration PenHouse in SoWhat?

Yes Abe! I remember now...Blue Mountain Dog Food.
I recall that their trucks all had the motto, "Going to the Dogs!"
Maybe Tualatin can revive that as their 'new' slogan.
The Quasimodo line was great, Jack!

"Plenty more weirdness" and no mentions of this story?

BEVERLY HILLS -- Cable network IFC will do its part to "keep Portland weird," ordering "Portlandia," a comedy series set in Portland that will film entirely on location...

"Saturday Night Live" player Fred Armisen and vocalist/guitarist Carrie Brownstein ... star in the six-episode series, playing themselves and other characters.

In the pilot episode [Kyle] MacLachlan plays the mayor of Portland, who asks Armisen and Brownstein to write a theme song for the city. The segment also features real Portland Mayor Sam Adams as an assistant to MacLachlan's fictional mayor.

Other characters include the owners of a feminist book store, a militant bike messenger and a punk-rock couple (Armisen plays the woman in the couple; Brownstein plays the man).

It sounds about as hackneyed as you could possibly make it. Maybe they can get Storm Large to pretend to pee on something to liven things up.