The cloud of foul-smelling emissions surrounding the new Portland transportation tax (coming soon to your water bill) gets thicker and stinkier by the day. Now it seems that although the City Council still plans to put the new tax up for a public vote in November, they'll be delaying taking formal action to do so until after the mayoral election in May.

Remember when the "fee" was so urgent that it had to be passed without a public vote? That James Monroe would have wanted it that way? Remember when the council had a change of heart and said it was going to play like grownups? Refer the tax to the voters now, and face the music for the next eight months? Well, all that's on hold because Sam the Tram's running for mayor, and he wants you to forget that he's in charge of this fiasco.

Or who knows? Maybe one day soon we'll open our water bills and find the tax on there, as he's figured out a way to slip it onto the books without anyone noticing. Or maybe he'll just wait 'til Grampy's gone and ram the whole thing through on the second of January, with no vote at all.

If you think the vote manipulations are infantile, wait until he's mayor and this sort of thing becomes a weekly occurrence. Never before has this once-great city been jerked around so badly. Vera Katz will look like Mary Poppins in comparison.