"Sad that it came down to this," Pugliese said. "I can't understand how it could get this bad. I could never run my household down this low. Don't know how they could run a city down this low."

I'm just glad Portland and Oregon both still have checks left in their checkbooks.

Portland would never run it down THAT low. They'd move it off the books before it'd get down that low.

And:
San Bernardino Bankruptcy: Third CA City In Less Than Two Weeks To Seek Bankruptcy Protection
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/11/san-bernardino-bankruptcy_n_1663940.html

Thanks
JK

Debt gets nixed on Route 66.

"I can't understand how it could get this bad"

Easy, most politicians see a budget like a game of Jenga. Just keep funding one pet project after another and no big shock happens as long a income (taxes) pays today's bills.

Then the last bill arrives and bang.

It basically happens because these guys want to fund their pet project now and really don't care about how we'll pay for it in the future.

Let's not put all the blame on local leader lunacy.

The fact is inflation caused by printing money at interest to private banks is nearing the end game.

What you are seeing is the first cracks in the monstrous dam just beginning to appear. Next year will be a blood bath from which no one can run - as the dam bursts from one hundred years of scamming the American people into giving up control of OUR money supply.

On the flip-side, speaking of local “leadership,” last night I caught the end of Lake Oswego’s proposed, new Parks Master Plan presentation and the Council’s study session of the plan. Instead of building new parks when the ones we already have aren’t being upgraded, repaired, restored (ivy and other non-native invasives removal), or maintained adequately, residents made it clear in a parks plan survey that maintenance and restoration of our current parks should be the priority. The City was originally pushing various new parks because, after all, it’s much more fun to plan and build new things than maintaining and restoring existing inventory!

Included in last night’s presentation was the (false) suggestion that the Council would have to make some creative funding decisions because, God knows, there’s just not enough money in the general fund for any of this. As soon as the presentation was concluded, the first question out of Jack Hoffman’s mouth was, “We should look into public-private partnerships for funding, you know, like Mercedes Benz donated $500.00 to our Fourth of July parade.” I am not making this up.

Potential “sponsorships” were also recommended as a funding source. Oh, goody. I guess we can soon look forward to the renaming of our parks for the highest commercial/political bidder. Of course, none of this is necessary; it’s just part of the continuing economic fraud perpetrated on LO citizens.

Lake Oswego “leadership” has wasted (and continues to waste) millions of dollars on non-priority economic development projects, urban renewal/streetcar scams, and the new, extremely costly, and totally unnecessary LO-Tigard joint water system project while ignoring much needed maintenance and restoration of our public parks and natural areas (among other capital spending priorities). For the high school’s Day of Community Service, the City had high school students shoveling gravel onto trails in the 52-acre Springbrook Park, as if the City of Lake Oswego is some needy, cash-strapped non-profit organization. Of course, these high school students’ parents have already paid the City to maintain parks through their property taxes, but let’s not point out the obvious abdication of responsibility and exploitation.

One suggestion by the Parks Department was that the City could apply for a grant from the National Park Service (if I’m remembering correctly - if not, the Forest Service) to restore Iron Mountain Park. So, because the "leadership" of affluent Lake Oswego over the past ten years has chosen to waste millions of dollars on non-priority fluff and political back-scratching, corporate welfare projects (so far over one million on the idiotic streetcar that LO residents don’t need or want), they expect national tax payers to help foot the bill for LO parks restoration. My fervent hope is that the NPS (or FS) flatly turns down any grant request from Lake Oswego; that grant money should go to a far less affluent and needy American community.

LO doesn’t have a general fund cash flow problem; we have a money wasting, politically self-serving “wants vs. needs” problem. Hopefully, based on the Parks Master Plan survey, more and more residents are waking up and we’ll see real change in November.

Great rephrase, Jack. Or how about 'get debt nixed on Route 66'?

On topic:
(reprising both Tim - "not all blame on local leaders," and realitybasedliberal - "the last ten years ... waste")

I feel so sorry for the voices (speaking here) with mind locked in obstinancy or habit, or self-defeat or aging decay, who insist to distort descriptions of world affairs forces causing wrong, (and descending in consequential local effects), twisted into imagined-false depiction as a problem they can comprehend (within delusions) to fit their pre-determined solution.
Or, I feel sorry for you if the only tool you have in your worldviews tool kit is private interest (anarchy), and then every problem looks to you to be public nuisance, (solved by shrinking government).
If the only tool you have in your worldviews tool kit is collective accord (a k a 'idealism', 'mythic lore', 'get-God fatalism'), then every problem looks to you to be individual perversity, (solved by offing or removing the blamed individual).

I feel sorry for the half-brained, regardless which half it is. Their voices disclose being crippled inside.

Either way singularly adopted, (by repetition or habit, involution or dementia), having only one method to solve every problem of wrong affairs, fails.
Indeed, often worsens the wrong.
The failure (both ways) is the failure of lacking facts, (or not comprehending, perhaps ignoring them).

Private perverts lie to themselves (at least), delusionally faulting the collective System.
Community converts lie for their common sake (at least), delusionally faulting individual errancy.

It is difficult (and life is unenjoyable) for those who mentally hold Authority alone (whether personal or mob) to be truth, rather than Truth as authority.
(Credit: Gerald Massey, ref. wikiquote.org; cited in: Zeitgeist movie)

Scranton's deplorable situation, and Stockton's, and others unfolding, has not been and is not made by either the municipal conventions nor individual persons there. The "meltdown" situation (like 'trickle down') descended upon them in that place by the behest of a USA'nationalism' version of capitalism in COMBINE with exploitative private do-badders.
The municipality can enact no legislation and can obtain no leaders that may solve the problem there, since their problem is an effect from a causation beyond their reach or purview.
Namely, caused by over-arching force (nationalistic capitalism) propounded through and by deathly sinful persons (greedy, prideful, envious, angry, gluttonous, lustful, or slothful).

Here now a compilation of facts in which are what demolished Scranton, Stockton, and more during the last ten years.
The Collapsing US Economy and the end of the world, by Paul Craig Roberts, July 8, 2012 (This link points to comments which include specific notice of Scranton and Stockton.)
From such a base of facts shared in knowledge, we then can name the names and exact the systemic oppressions which are truly at blame and fault. (Bush naziism, in short; that is, Prescott Bush and his descendants, Hitler naziism and its developments.)

Yeah, the facts in play is a long list. Difficult for an uncomprehending slow reader to struggle to finish. Naturally the path of least resistance for knowledge is retreat into one's preconceived ideological notions, as habit, not daring (or too lazy) to venture into full-fledged matters of fact and the facts of life.

Supplemental (or alternative) study of the linked 'Zeitgeist' movie also provides the same main facts, (compiled from the last 2500 years rather than the last 10 years). For some (younglings taught only by video), watching the 2-hour movie could take less time than reading Roberts' essay and commenters.

(Our own) Portland's destruction is also coming in the works of world affairs. In order to understand the problematic forces, and then to prevent or repair the destructive elements, our views must first look for the causes of wrong-going effects beyond the past and passing individuals and practices, names and ordinances, within Portland. We must get smart, cognitive of both individual (left brain) and collective (right brain) natures known historically. Or we shall get dead ... and amount to more of that history.

Here's two things to watch out for, relating to what we know (or don't) as false information cable TV subscribers pay to ingest; fool for thought:

Fox's Megyn Kelly Uses San Bernardino To Perpetuate Falsehood That Public Sector Pensions Cause Bankruptcies, Video
.

How A Right-Wing Group Is Infiltrating State News Coverage, by JOE STRUPP

(both items credit: Media Matters .orgy)

Tip of the iceberg?
Rising costs push California cities to fiscal brink
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-san-bernardino-bankruptcy-20120712,0,2433019.story

Thanks
JK