Smart move
The "Candidates Gone Wild" people (WW and the Bus kids) have decided to allow all six candidates in the Portland City Council race for Sam Adams's old seat to appear on stage at their event. Given how close that race is, that makes perfect sense. It also responds to some problems they had with their original idea, a straw poll to winnow the field down to three.
And it gives their darling, Streetcar Smith, a chance to get up on the stage, even though he came in last in the balloting. Speaking of whom, I see he's good to go on moving the Sauvie Island Bridge rather than recycling it. No expensive idea is too stupid for that guy.
| Posted at 2:31 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (21)
"No expensive idea is too stupid for that guy."
...Except the Columbia River Crossing...
The CRC is the MOST expensive idea, of which Smith is ADAMANTLY opposed. Smithis helping spearhead a movement to reassess the allocation of 4 billion dollars, or to put it in terms for you, Bojack, that's 80 trams.
Posted by Aaron Brown | April 16, 2008 3:25 PM
..Except the Columbia River Crossing...
The CRC is the MOST expensive idea, of which Smith is ADAMANTLY opposed.
"Cars... bad!... cars... bad!"
Posted by Jack Bog | April 16, 2008 3:32 PM
The WillyWeek/CGW poll was intended to separate the legitimate contenders from the pretenders.
When their candidate finished last, they decided to toss out the poll results and invite everobody running for Commish #1?
Meanwhile, they only invited the top two candidates for the Commish #2 and Mayor's contest.
Something is rotten in Denmark.
Posted by Mister Tee | April 16, 2008 4:06 PM
Smith wouldn't be opposed to the Columbia River Crossing if it were a Light Rail/ped/bike Only bridge and cost $8 billion.
I'm glad he's in the gone wild. I'm going to it now.
Posted by Howard | April 16, 2008 4:23 PM
Oh, man. That's funny.
(From a nice safe distance beyond the office's tax authority, anyway.)
Posted by Alan DeWitt | April 16, 2008 4:39 PM
I was watching the votes for position one and it looked like votes were being swapped with other candidates; maybe to give chris more votes then he really got?
I can't think of one person who would vote for him.
Posted by Anthony | April 16, 2008 4:42 PM
i'm confused. isn't the CRC ultimately a state process and decision?
so, wouldn't Adams being for or against it be, in the end, posturing?
Posted by ecohuman.com | April 16, 2008 6:07 PM
reassess the allocation of 4 billion dollars, or to put it in terms for you, Bojack, that's 80 trams.
Or 168 miles of Streetcar tracks :-)
i'm confused. isn't the CRC ultimately a state process and decision?
It's a process involving two states and a whole set of local governments.
The current best set of assumptions are that the funding would be roughly 1/3 Federal, 1/3 from bonding future toll receipts and 1/3 from "local match". While the legislature might put up some of that local match, I doubt it will fork over $1.4B, so some significant portion of that would come from local government (like the City of Portland).
Posted by Chris Smith | April 16, 2008 6:38 PM
That's easy. Just cancel the light rail part. Oh? It's light rail or nothing?
Posted by Hal | April 16, 2008 7:38 PM
Huh, Chris, how do you get $1.4 BILLION from City of Portland? They can't even fill a pothole. But after reviewing the video I see that this isn't important to you-trolleys trump basic services. I'm glad you think globally and forget the locally. You should run for the UN Secretary position.
I know, we have to begin somewhere. I'll just ride transit for 6 3/4 hours to attend my three meetings a day so I can pay my taxes.
Posted by lw | April 16, 2008 7:58 PM
Huh, Chris, how do you get $1.4 BILLION from City of Portland?
I didn't say $1.4B from the City of Portland, I said the local match portion (from a variety of local governments) would be 1/3 of $4.2B, which on my calculator is $1.4B. And Portland will be asked to shoulder a portion of that which will run into the hundreds of millions.
Posted by Chris Smith | April 16, 2008 10:28 PM
Money that could much better be spent on streetcars...
Posted by Jack Bog | April 16, 2008 10:35 PM
We can issue a couple hundred million worth of bonds before lunch on Friday.
If it were for light rail, Tri-Met wouldn't even bother to ask for a public vote; they'd just do it.
What's the big deal? You can't get all fiscally conservative just because Homer's not getting a slice of the proceeds.
Posted by Mister Tee | April 16, 2008 11:34 PM
Jack,
Have you been invited to be on the panel?
Posted by Just Wondering | April 17, 2008 1:13 AM
No. I did it once. It was sort of fun, except for the jeers I got from all the Stennies in attendance.
Posted by Jack Bog | April 17, 2008 3:10 AM
If it were for light rail, Tri-Met wouldn't even bother to ask for a public vote; they'd just do it.
If you think there's going to be a public vote on the CRC, you are very mistaken.
Posted by Chris Smith | April 17, 2008 6:21 AM
"If you think there's going to be a public vote on the CRC, you are very mistaken."
Good grief Smith, the CRC is a light rail project,,, of course there won't be any public vote.
And the reason being is folks like you working behind the scenes providing cover for officials while they prohibit voting.
Posted by Gene | April 17, 2008 8:44 AM
We don't dare let people vote on these things, they'll vote no. Silly, silly people don't know how to vote. They're just clinging to their pocketbooks and their old ideas about private property rights and limited government.
Posted by Andy | April 17, 2008 10:55 AM
Chris Smith, I used CoP generically. How/where are you going to get $1.4 BILLION from your list of a "variety of local governments" to cover the 1/3 matching funds?
Mult. Co. can't open a jail, or fix the Sellwood Bridge. Metro has no extra money. TriMet can't even police it's own transit system. CoP can't fix a pothole.
What are you going to do, hit up the 91 neighborhood associations?
Posted by lw | April 17, 2008 2:07 PM
Chris Smith, I used CoP generically. How/where are you going to get $1.4 BILLION from your list of a "variety of local governments" to cover the 1/3 matching funds?
Mult. Co. can't open a jail, or fix the Sellwood Bridge. Metro has no extra money. TriMet can't even police it's own transit system. CoP can't fix a pothole.
What I fear is that this will suck funding away from many truly valuable transportation projects across a variety of modes!
Posted by Chris Smith | April 17, 2008 4:18 PM
Chris, you didn't answer the question. Do you have an answer? No?
Posted by lw | April 17, 2008 9:28 PM