It's funny how O's Brad Schmidt says that the 38% supporting the trolley are "slightly less than half" are supportive. Would he use those words if he was talking about some candidate who failed, losing by 38%? He'd call it a "landslide" for the winner.

And what is more significant, the 38% supporting it is after the question is asked "would you support it if the price was $200 Million versus the last estimate of $1/2 Billion. What a controlled poll and what a strange analysis.

When it is put up for a vote it will be defeated. And to refute the few posters who claim the citizens of Portland's trolley segment want the trolley, it should be put up for a vote noting how SW Macadam will be strangled with the trolley, zoning heights and density will be increased and their livable neighborhood will suffer.

The Portland area government must so dysfunctional as to virtually not even exist. How else can we be such a haven for predators and prey?

So you didn't like what we wanted to sell you in the first place. Okay so we'll just spend more of your money trying to sell it to you again.

This is the most telling point in the entire article:

"Local leaders had an incentive to value the already-owned land as high as possible, because the larger the overall project cost, the more federal money that could be available.

. . .

"It's likely that officials will now suggest the project costs far less."

So, let's get this straight: They had "incentive" to misrepresent the facts to cheat the federal government (which operates with our taxes to, by the way) and when the voters rejected it, they will come back and "suggest" lower costs.

How about this: GUARANTEE a low cost and make the contractor eat the cost overruns? You can't do that, then maybe you table this project until there is actually a demand or need for it.

Free advice, you don't even have to vote for me.

Wonder how much the consultants are being paid to keep this turkey alive?

Homer should retire...he's old enough!
Now if only we could retire the rest of the public crooks.
I guess their PERS pensions aren't large enough yet!

Homer should retire...he's old enough!

I brought it up the other day and maybe someone can find the comment by Bill McDonald, as I recall, when he was referring to elected officials about their addiction to pet projects. Perhaps the same here, it becomes an addiction and they cannot stop. Must be a charge to take a swath of land, redo it and make a bundle too.

Remember when I was a kid in a plowed sand pile creating a network of roads, and designing a city...kinda fun, but can't imagine it would have been fun to tear down something others had built especially if others vehemently objected.

The voters of Lake Oswego do get to vote up or down on the boondoggle, but it is not a binding vote. The city council can still approve the project.

Don't even wait for the vote if that is the case...
Start the recall!

2nd most telling sentence:

"Engineers are in the process of reworking the project and believe that the actual cost of the project could be half as much, or between $200 and $250 million dollars."

You must be stupid to beleive them. Out of the blue they can cut 50% just like that in two weeks. This gives me as much confidence in this number as their first pass.

Why does it matter? Once it gets started it'll cost 4x as much as they told us and they know that.

Dunthorpe, Lake Oswego, Clackamas County, you thought you were immune, but this streetcar and the MLR mean you're about to get zoned for condos, apartments, apartments, and condos, you're going to be hobbled to keep you from straying out of your neighborhoods unless you use expensive public transit, and the best part is you get to pay for it.

Politicians to the public... "screw you".

Putting aside the subsidies Mr. Grumpy, would you still be opposed to new condos if there weren't any public subsidies involved? If condo builders decided that there was actually a market for their product - people who wanted that choice of lifestyle? Or would you still be opposed to it for ideological reasons?

The part of the survey that fries me is the question that specifically asks what the pain threshold of the LO taxpayers is. Since it was determined to be around $200M, then that is the amount the new and improved cost estimate will be. (It doesn't hurt that Mayor Jack Hoffman and Adam Davis of Davis, Hibbits & Migdhal are associates in Portland's exclusive group, The Junto).

For anyone who has read or written bids or cost estimates, it is very easy to come within a target number. Just take a look at what is left out. Oh yeah, you can't see what isn't there. Leave out contingency factors, lowball the materials and labor, use today's pricing rather than projected costs, leave out items that you know will be necessary later, yada, yada. The report that was due 2 months ago couldn't possibly be ready until after the survey told the city what the cost numbers had to be.

With so many careers and so much money riding on this train and others around the country, they are very hard to kill. But it is hunting season.

Streetcar surveys with integrity??