I hope people down that way have lived in LO long enough to pay attention to what's happened in Portland.

$65M my eye. It only goes up by leaps and bounds from there... "there were some unexpected cost overruns"... "too late to stop now"... "the community is legally committed", ha ha ha ha ... all the way to the bank.

That is just the first double. It will double 2 or 3 more times before we get close to the truth.

The idiots in City Hall think we're all too stupid to pay attention to their lies.

I would be curious to ask Lake Oswegans the following question: even if this was guaranteed to turn out exactly as big and sparkly as planned, do you think your city should take out tens of millions in bonds to make it happen?

In other words, what is in it for the current residents who will be paying for it? To get a new streetcar? To bring some new buildings and residents to town? What is the attraction supposed to be for the current population that overcomes the high cost?

"The feasibility study was prepared by economic consulting firm ECONorthwest"

This firm pops up a lot in making everything sound so economically rosy. Have noticed CoP ues them and I believe PPS prior to the last bond measure. ECONorthwest is based in Eugene with an office in Portland. What is the back story here?

ECONorthwest are crooks! They get paid to shill for the developers.

And since when is LO "blighted" and in need of public financing?
Oh! Silly me! I forgot this isn't about blight....it is about paying developers with taxpayer money.
Bend over LO....welcome to the world of TIF.

Snares,

No.
Congestion, our city gov. Too involved with private, for-profit businesses, no trust in leaders who do their own thing, and mostly, a degraded city that ruins the tranquility and beauty that we all moved here for.
Let them come on their own dime like everyone else.
None.

The plan to expand the URA to capture more money to help finance the initial stages of infrastructure construction has been therenall along. Not sure what prompted the Big O to get this info. out now.

A good article and following discussion/comments about the changing boundaries of the URA in LO is at:
http://www.lakeoswegoreview.com/opinion/story.php?story_id=131967210263240000

SO how does the 386 measure affect this if it passes?

3-386 addresses only county UR use.
Not any city use.

However, the total abuse county wide (county and cities) is now diverting $29.7 million per year from services to pay UR debt.

About two dozen properties along the northern part of the "proposed" streetcar rail track are in unincorporated Clackamas County. I doubt that this fact would mean that the county would want to try for a URD there, but who knows? If the "local" voters get to choose, then the land the tracks are on, owned by Metro, would have to account for a lot of votes. Doesn't seem likely. This slim little margin of unincorporated county land however, is what gives CC Dept. of Transportation the shoo-in to take the lead on the Hwy 43 bike lane conversions. You just never know what these guys are planning until it's too late.

Packets of info. for the Tue. 11/8 LO City Council mtg. are online and the mtg. stream live starting at 6 pm. http://www.ci.oswego.or.us/calendar/CouncilMtgs/2011MeetingLog.htm

Portland Native- they get paid to shill for everyone: http://www.econw.com/company/representative_clients

I would be curious to ask Lake Oswegans the following question: even if this was guaranteed to turn out exactly as big and sparkly as planned, do you think your city should take out tens of millions in bonds to make it happen?

Great threshhold question. Since the answer will certainly involve the phrase "matching federal dollars" I would like to include a corollary:

"If this was guaranteed to turn out exactly as big and sparkly as planned, is it worth borrowing tens of millions of dollars from the Chinese to make the federal match happen?"

Development manager under the Don:

http://www.econw.com/people/person?name=farkas

LO should be on the lookout for another UR Homer Trick.

His company will buy or get first rights on a piece of property early or before UR is formed, then he'll propose the wonderful "Affordable Housing" concept to sell to the citizens of LO that he is magnanimous. Then he'll conveniently offer his held property for Affordable Housing, but at a "reasonable" increase in price from what he paid. But it doesn't stop there, he'll require that he be the exclusive developer of the housing.

This all happened for Block 49 in SoWhat. He paid $1.2 Million for the block, six months later he sells it to PDC/Housing Bureau for $4.2 Million. Then he's the exclusive developer.

How nice. Surely he'll be at the Grand Opening and honored. But none of this will be mentioned. Look out LO.

...Oh! Silly me! I forgot this isn't about blight....it is about paying developers with taxpayer money...

That is right,
This is not about blight.
It is about money and greed,
All for the UR that we don't need.

http://www.pdc.us/default.asp

Created by Portland voters in 1958, PDC has played a major role in keeping Portland one of America's most livable cities. During the past 50 years, PDC has taken forward 20 urban renewal plans that have helped change the face of the city—making it a better place to live for all Portlanders. (See PDC history.)

How would you like to read this paragraph in the future?:
Rescinded by Portland voters in 2012, PDC had played a major role in developing Portland. After 20 urban renewal plans that helped change the face of the city, the voters decided they have had enough change. This vote to eliminate PDC was approved in order to take care of the basic needs of the city making it a better place to live for all Portlanders.

clinamen--are you looking for volunteers?

Teresa and Clinamen, a vote to throttle or eliminate PDC may happen. But the political reality of a vote succeeding is slim. But having a measure like Clackamas Co.'s to require voting on any new or remodeled urban renewal districts is a very likely reality.

Already Cop/PDC pols and bureaucrats are meeting behind closed doors discussing the measures possibility.

Portland needs citizen input on UR and careful examination of future UR districts. What is wrong with democratic examination of the debt UR places on ourselves and the several generations beyond? Stay tuned and join in on citizen participation versus a few determining our debt future.

I watched the LO city council meeting on TV last night, and I can't remember any of the presenters from WDW, EcoNorthwest, or LO citizen groups that were able to say whether or not their plans (at this stage) would "pencil out". It was made clear by more than one person that the Foothills development is inextricably linked to the Pdx-to-LO streetcar, plus having LO fund all infrastructure construction through TIFs and other citizen-busting schemes.

My interpretation is that this is a stinker of a project financially speaking, and if things pencil out differently than planned, LO would either get 90-foot plus buildings (currently being planned for 45 feet), or an abandoned or money-bleeding project that would require more taxpayer money. Why wouldn't this project be economically feasible? Doesn't this mean that WDW, as a private firm, should not move ahead unless they were willing to take the risks? If there were a true partnership, shouldn't LO expect to get some of the profit that will go into the WDW money pit. They are selling snake oil and the city is too sucked into being co-developers and "creating the next great neighborhood in LO" to see it.

Public-private partnerships are the devil in disguise. They promise you what you want, and tell you what you want to hear. Comparisons were made to the Pearl and the successful community there. Comparisons were also made to The Round as what we want to avoid by having "certainty" for the developers before they start. An architect described the alternative as haphazard development, filled with "wood walk-ups". They painted a grim future if WDW's plans were not approved.

When faced with 2 extreme choices, I always look for a third, fourth, and more. There are a lot of ways the area can be developed without taxpayer funds - row houses, garden apartments, smaller-scaled condos, shops, galleries, whatever. It just won't go down as the magnificent jewel that would catapult the city to urban status that city leaders have been seduced by.

So? We will still survive and thrive.

Nolo,
I may have written about this before, I like LO the way it is and go there for lunch, a walk, etc. good to get away from the pdx scene. As far as I am concerned, just great if it is not updated to look like a cookie cutter, hope LO will be able to retain its character.
If there are some there who do not like it, they should move instead of trying to push their vision to change LO. There are plenty of places they can move to, in the Pearl and South Waterfront.
...why don't these developer types move to another state where some might want a Pearl, we have had our share of these projects in our area...and really cannot continue to afford these public-private partnerships.