What is truly sad is the backers will say this up with a straight face while a significant portion of the funds raised would got to non-school activities like the opera and to grants to local "artists"..

Look - a white male child in the flyer! Maybe he is representing the gay/by/tranny contingent.

It's not just the City Club that preaches the establishment line - the Plague of Women Vipers serves the same role.

I encourage Portlanders to read the City Club report, which contains much more information and deliberation than a single sentence pulled for a political advertisement. The committee that studied this measure was actually split, and in the report you'll see that each side argued strongly for their position. The membership voted to support the Yes position, but if you want a fully vetted review of the measure -- pro and con -- you won't find a better source.

http://www.pdxcityclub.org/system/files/reports/Measure_26-146_.pdf

Why doesn't the city club allow a fair candidates forum?
At the very least a few minutes for each person to speak as to why they took this enormous step to want to run for an office?
Whittling down to the pre-selected ones apparently by the "insiders" in our city is far from democratic.
Rare, but there occasionally are candidate fairs where all are invited to participate.
So, it can be done.
Does the City Club report contain a list of other candidates not allowed in their debate to offer their positions on critical issues in our city?

John is right. On the "Arts Tax" there was a one vote difference between the pro and con side among the committee offering the recommendations.

Among the general membership itself, the split was 60-47 in favor of supporting the measure. The woman next to me a lunch leaned over and said, "Wow, it's never this close on ballot measures."

By way of comparison, the City Club opposed the casino measures by a vote of 80-4.

For more information see noheadtax.com.

Roll these three tax measures together and it's $500/year per $300,000 assessed value. Then add another $500/year for the next round of PPS improvements (they have admitted this is just the beginning) to your current annual property tax.

Then multiply your 2014 property tax liability times 1.03 for each year you plan on owning your home. It compounds pretty quickly to a number that will prevent most people from staying in that home throughout retirement.

Throw in some new buses for Tri-Met, a few more shiny HAP/PDC/PFB buildings, and a bailout for the PFB retirement fund and Portland will become a prohibitively expensive place to own a home.

How does a tax provide a "free" arts experience (or anything else). If the art experience is free, why does it need to be funded by a tax?

Ted: Stop making cents.