Okay, so PSU is already straining from the number of students, so it needs even more money than what it gets from tuitions and fees? If it's so blasted successful, then, as with the biogas facility Sam keeps pushing, why hasn't anybody else popped up to offer the money? (I already know the answer. I just want to see if Sam's crew has a good excuse.)

In order to create the big playground for 20 somethings on bikes the planners seem determined to turn Portland into, I suppose it might make some sense if PSU simply governed the city on its own. Then at least we could stop wasting all this time and money on sham elections.

Sam Adams is an idiot. Exhibit A:

I'm an idiot, too ...

My graph got cut off. NYU's endowment is $2.5 billion, which is only 50 times larger than PSU's.

It's really getting old comparing Portland to NYC. We could do with a whole lot less New York influence as virtually all of the political class transplants from there have been nothing but sell-outs to finance capital and the local construction mafia.

Of course PSU will be better than NYU. Portland's better than New York and every other city in history and Sam Adams is the best mayor in the world - ever. It's simple logic, folks, from a guy who is so smart he didn't need to bother finishing college himself.

And who other than the all-knowing Sam Adams even said NYU is the best urban university in the nation? Or even in New York City? There a fine university a little up the river from NYU, in the Morningside Heights neighborhood, that is certainly a rival for that title with NYU. In any case, no urban renewal plan Portland City Council can ever dream up will result in PSU holding a candle to either one of them.

Much as I love Portland and Oregon, I've attended both PSU and NYU and when I heard that quote this morning I would have hit my head on my desk if I hadn't been driving my car.

Next step, "stop and frisk"....just! like NYC?
Or maybe Tri-Met will enforce the rules to make the riders pay the fares?

It's worth pointing out that the staffer who wrote this insane dribble and fuzzy math is a relatively new member of the Mayor's office with zero economic or education policy experience.

http://www.portlandonline.com/mayor/?a=389158&c=49518

"Culture & Communications Policy Advisor, she will be working to helping ensure arts education and cultural access for all Portlanders"

Portland voters put idiots in City Hall who turn around and employ more idiots in order to propagate itself, sort of like a living organism, or in this case a parasite.

Didn't Mike Judge make a movie along these lines of thought a few years back called "Idiocracy"?

Just holding my breath for the PSU announcement of the creation of the "Sam Adams Center for Equity,Sustainability and Economic Policy". He'll be the first department hire next Jan.

I also almost drove off the road when I heard Sam utter that drivel. It is one thing to piss on my shoe and tell me it's raining, but this goes to a whole new level.

There is only one spot downtown that needs urban renewal to remove "blight" and that is City Hall.

Well said, Old Zeb!

Mr. Grumpy: is "Go by streetcar!" the current version of "Brawndo has electrolytes"?

If they cared about education....

It is too depressing to even finish that sentence.

Time for a state law requiring a vote of the people for any URA, and an absolute requirement that none of the base vale of the area included exceed 40% of the jurisdictional mean.