I'd love to see a website titled something like, "Portland to Portlandia - Circling the Drain".

Another one I'd love to see would be a before-after photo record of all the Victorian's, craftsman bungalows, and 4-squares being demolished to make way for expensive and trendy "workforce housing" barracks.

"Had we not had this scandal"

Yeah, it's the fault of the scandal that Sam Adams is a scumbag. What, not going to blame the press instead?

The pot calling the kettle "incredible".

They were both "incredible" - incredibly bad for my town.

In a perfect world, they'd pick and bitch at each other forever in the afterlife.

Oooh, let's. Of course, even if these stats were to be released they would be spun, despite our lying eyes.

Streets that lost vehicle traffic

A comparison of water bills vs services

A comparison of garbage bills vs services

An audit of the development bureau

A comparison of downtown commercial vacancy rates

Police presence + enforcement of criminal laws (ha ha)

Property tax rates

Portland public school costs vs results

Private vs public sector pay+benefit rates

Actual unemployment+entitlement numbers

Becoming #1 in homelessness and the accompanying enshrinement

Child sex trafficking rates

... geez, I gotta stop ...

The lies come thick and fast.

Corruption scandal in the Bureau of Transportation (Sam's bureau).

The man of many scandals who tried to be dictator instead of mayor. How many years and city bankruptcies will it take for the city to recover?

Leaf tax, head tax, food slop ordeal, $60 a year to park in front of your own house, unfunded pensions, rigged fluoridation vote, massive borrowings for needless crap, parking meters on Sunday, parking meters on NE Broadway and NW 23rd, no road maintenance, 10 different color bike boxes that cause accidents, a property tax increase to pay for fire trucks... incredible, indeed.

Sammy boy was one of Vera's main staff minions. He clawed his way to the top by being the most vindictive, back-stabbing, and treacherous.

Of course Vera is proud of him...

She was almost as bad as he is. Almost.

If Vera thinks Sammyboy “had an incredible four years” (dictating to Portlanders); she must also have “incredible” thoughts about some of the other dictators of the world now engaged in battle and combat with the people of their respective countries. Furthermore, Sammyboy doesn’t need another four years to have an incredible legacy. He already has one including:

A lack of understanding for common sense budgeting.
Cutting basic services while funding unnecessary pet projects.
Increasing taxes and fees, the cost of living and doing business in Portland.
Showing no respect for people in opposition to his misaligned agenda.
Tearing apart Portland’s street system so freeloading bicyclists have more room while making plans for a fantasy horse and buggy era streetcar system.
Providing only lip service to equity - especially as it relates to differing opinions and financial equity when it applies to paying for infrastructure being utilized.

At midnight on New Years Eve it is traditional to make a lot of noise to drive out the demons. This year we can all celebrate the end of the dictatorial rein of the demon Sammyboy and his cohort – the bull in the china shop – Fireman Randy the Hose Guy.

Here's a short list of Sam's screwing for just one neighborhood-South Portland, with the help of using SoWhat's URA.

1) Stole $20 Million from Sellwood Bridge's replacement for MLR.

2) Stole $20 Million from SoWhat's URA for MLR.

3) Promised 10,000 biotech jobs from SoWhat, accomplished none.

4) Told neighborhood and city that the Tram would cost $8.5 Million but total cost for every aspect including design, administration and land exceeded $116 Million.

5) Promised transportation projects to insure that SoWhat becomes less of an access island. Not one new transportation project completed.

6) Promised over 450 affordable housing units for SoWhat. Less than half provided.

7 Promised completion of Greenway from downtown to Johns Landing. Still planning and seeking funding.

8)Sam lobbied for parking meters in SoWhat, and stole the money for the streetcar.

9) Spent over $500,000 in planning for the dead trolley to LO without putting it up for a vote or a full outreach to all of the neighborhood or city.

10) Moved the MLR crossing from the re-engineered-for-streetcar Hawthorne Bridge that cost $70 Million to a new exclusive lightrail/bus/ped/bike bridge that is costing over $230 Million.

11) Moved the new streetcar line on SW Moody, again, to the tune of $47 Million.

12) Strong-armed TriMet to give OHSU/OSU/PSU new Collaborative Building $10 Million. Stole from bus service.

13) Told the City and neighborhood that SoWhat would have 40% transit use, but recent studies show about 7%.

14) Sam's SoWhat promised (per PDC financial projections) over $18 Million of TIF dollars from property taxes this year to help pay the $290 Million URA debt taxpayers have incurred. Recent yearly returns have been under $10 Million.

Now each neighborhood and urban renewal area needs to ask what Sam has done for them. Count your curb extensions, bio-swales, potholes, bike boxes, un-built sidewalks and all your additional fees.

Destruction of SW Broadway as a viable thoroughfare. Decline of parks, streets, sewers, water, and trash service. Diversion of maintenance budget to dalliances in the arts and employee compensation.

Failure to detect rampant fraud and abuse in bureau's under his direction supervision or mitigate the abuse discovered by other comissioners in their own bureau's.

Decline in regional transportation efficiency and increase in I-5 wait times and diversion of thru traffic to our neighborhood streets.

Total and complete lack of retaining or recruiting viable businesses without massive governments subsidies.

Portland has become the national equivalent of the Polack joke: unlike the real Poland which has a thriving economy compared to Portland.

EPIC MAYORAL FAIL.

If by "incredible" you mean "completely lacking the virtue of credibility", then mission accomplished.

The only thing you can do that will make them listen is to get out of town. It'll still be there the three or four times of year you need it. Just get out.

If we've learned anything at all from the last four years, it's this: NO MINORS

http://pmccabe420.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/adams_breedlove.jpg

PA squared. Progressive Authoritarianism delivered through the Public Address system. Reminds me of the nuclear bomb posters of the 70's ~~ put your head between your legs ... and everybody remembers what to do next.

The catcalls here are drowned out by the uber-blue Oregon cheers elsewhere.

Having left Portland shortly before the Adams administration, on my return trips I have seen a lot of changes. This was an administration of a lot of accomplishment. None of which looks good to me.

I remember when I thought the streetcars were just Vera's silly stupid extravagant little mantlepiece decorations. Boy, was I wrong.

I predict the larger powers will continue to thrive and the post-Hales administration will bring back even more of the nonsense.

The offers to let you mortgage your home to the rafters for adding some gravel to the city's "unimproved" streets. Mortgage your firstborn for asphalt roadway and concrete sidewalks. Storm drains? You don't wanna' know.

Speaking of parking meters, they helped drive the final nail in the coffin for a 30 plus year old small independent business.

“The recession and changing public tastes hurt him. So did the addition of parking meters in the Lloyd District -- "We needed parking meters here like you need another aperture in the cranium," he said -- and construction of the new eastside streetcar loop. Yes, the return of trains to Northeast Portland helped kill this Northeast Portland train store.”

"Oh, it was just a mess," he said. "I'm guessing it cut revenue by half."

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2012/12/vics_hobby_supply_in_northeast.html

As an outsider, I've got to give Sam credit for making Portland more liveable. That is, for jobless hipsters who will move back home once the parental subsidies run out. For everyone else, well...

E. Burnside/NE Couch fustercluck Couplets. Removing a ton of street parking needed by business for drainage ditches, I mean bio-swales. They built the big pipes, y take away parking for draining ditches??

What's next for Adams? "Job offers have come in, Adams said, but he won't talk about them." However a unnamed source in Adam's administration stated listed a few possibilities.
Top on his list is Bio-swale Maintenance Director. Sam will have a neat yellow vest to wear city owned SUV pickup, rake, shovel at his disposal.

Director of Traffic Flow on the new Max, bicycle, pedestrian bridge. He will have the use of a neat yellow vest to wear and city owned SUV pickup to get to the bridge.

Portland Greeter at PDX for the millions who come to Portland yearly. Sam will be issued a neat yellow vest to wear and city owned SUV pickup to get to the airport as soon as a visitor arrives.

Adams shows hypocrisy throughout his term, and one of the worst is that he talks sustainable, but then goes along with Leonard in incrementally destroying the greatest treasure and asset of our community, our good and sustainable Bull Run Water System and reservoirs.

The business community and citizens have experienced this council at hearings repeatedly going against the public interest, favoring corporations.

I have written about this often on the blog, no need to reiterate the chapters of details today. A new year is coming and if this isn’t stopped by the next administration, Senator Merkley needs to step up and join Senator Schumer of New York to stop this and ask for a Waiver from the federal EPA LT2 rule as it is now being reviewed.

The F L U O R I D E issue. He was lobbied, claimed he knew the science and what would
be best now for everyone, telegraphed his vote before public testimony and hearing. His actions made citizens have to collect enormous numbers of signatures within 30 days to bring the matter to a vote. Then he facilitates the rush to a vote and won't allow the time for a serious panel to present all information for the public before a vote. So no matter what else he has done and it hasn't been good, this time, he has entered the arena of our personal health and in my opinion he and this council are the last ones to be prescribing medications for the entire community. UGH!