I watched it for a little while
Now that Opie Sten has retired from the Portland City Council for his mysterious pursuits up in Bridlemile, some new boo birds have arrived at City Hall to decry his harebrained and legally questionable idea of creating a "satellite" urban renewal district hooking up the Pearl District with the David Douglas School District. One of the Big Idea Dude's parting shots would be to take urban renewal property taxes from the Pearl and spend them to build a new school out in the sticks, where voters apparently don't want to pay for it.
Anyway, who's complaining now? The Portland School District, whose own facilities are falling apart and could use a serious shot in the arm for facilities as well. The Trib has the story pretty well covered here.
| Posted at 9:30 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (1)
This is yet another means to expand and never have a net return of property taxes to the tax rolls as promised with every single new scheme.
The next muinicipal sap who lectures the public on how TIF works to boost revenue should be slapped over and over again till they shut up and go away.
In this case, gee whiz, who would object? It's for kids. We can't retire the debts and return the money to basic services. We need to spend it on all these worthy things. Someday we'll stop dreaming up new ways to spend it and then it will finally go back as we promised.
But for now there are simply too many important thing need doing.
Isn't this a great way to pay for things?
Posted by Howard | May 16, 2008 12:21 AM