This one's a howler. We got another "election porn" mailer over the weekend from the "voter-owned" people -- you know, the ones pushing the Portland ballot measure whereby the taxpayers get to pay for local politicians' election campaigns. One of their selling points is that they've got all the bugs ironed out now -- no room for mistakes like that awful Emilie Boyles fiasco.

We were amused to see that the flyer actually sports on its cover a middle-aged white guy -- an endangered species when it comes to campaign literature in Portland:

Slight problem: According to the Secretary of State, the gentleman in the photo is registered to vote in Newberg:

And if he's living in Portland now, it's a recent move. His employer's spring 2008 newsletter informs us:

Oh, well. At least they tried to find a middle-aged white guy from Portland who'd pose for this.

Up in Cowlitz County, the court clerk takes care of that.

Another sales pitch arrived in the mail yesterday from the proposed new taxing district for the Multnomah County library:

The last one was so disingenuous. I wonder if that gal even knew what they were going to use her picture for when they took it.

The 'dogs are in for another week. Here's how the players are going in this week's installment of our pro football underdog game:

Continue reading "Rainy day 'dogs" »

And of course, his buddies at Portland's moribund daily newspaper can't wait to show their love.

But Dan won't run if his BFF Jeff Cogen does. "Mom says she can't afford to bankroll two campaigns."

We got our third glossy mailer of the week yesterday from the Oregon League of Conservation Voters -- just like the other two, gushing over mean old Bob Stacey:

It's amazing to us that a "conservation" group is so wasteful with the junk mail. How many trees did they kill, how much water was used to make the paper, how much fossil fuel was burned to get this to our house, and how much more in natural resources will be wasted to recycle three mailers?

This candidate must not care much about the environment. All the more reason to vote for Tom Hughes.

This is hysterical. On Thursday, the City of Portland will mobilize its workers for a "dry run" of the official plan of action during a snowstorm.

In other words, everyone's going home for a few days, except for the two guys who run the snow plows. And the mayor will be incommunicado for a while.

No, it's just some people who are very concerned about health care in this country, and they just happened to pick this week to point out that it's all my senators' fault:

I was wondering if we were going to get any election porn in the mail from the West Hills aristocrats pushing Ballot Measure 26-118, which would impose a Multnomah County property tax to pay for the historical society. Sure enough, it showed up yesterday:

Most of the time, I like it when the congressman from Eugene tells it like it is. But when he says stupid stuff, he hurts the whole liberal cause.

So deaf they can't hear the whistle.

It's the no. 4 divorce capital of America, according to this report.

That blue, blue Carla Axtman took her camera to the Obama speech the other day, and here is what she brought home with her.

Here's a neat video that might help you find your way out of the darkness.

And what -- a parking garage?

And what -- only one "open house"?

So un-Portland. Nurse Amanda does not approve.

Our friendly regional Indian casinos sent us a piece of campaign junk mail, which arrived yesterday:

A four-pager, and mighty shiny, but no photos -- of anything! Where are the smiling children romping around the reservation? Where are the cartoon figures of the bad guys from Lake Oswego? Just words -- how pedestrian.

But oh, what words!

Relying on privately run, Las Vegas-style casinos to solve our economic problems is morally wrong and sends the wrong message to our children.

Relying on tribally run, Las Vegas-style casinos to solve the tribes' economic problems is morally fine and doesn't send the wrong message to our children.

It appears that the president of the Bandon Dunes Golf Course is throwing some dough ($100,000) at state legislative elections in Illinois.

My friend and colleague Tung Yin sounds off on some of the ballot measures showing up on Oregonians' dining room tables.

The last game of the week has been added to our slate in this week's installment of our charity pro football underdog contest:

9 JACKSONVILLE at Kansas City

Good luck to all our players.

But not an outright merger, apparently. The task force charged with considering collaboration between, and a possible combination of, the two schools has released its report, here.

We just received a notice in the mail from the City of Portland informing us that they're going to charge us $30 this year for leaf removal on the public street in front of our house. The flyer says nothing about it being optional, and it's being imposed on neighborhood "residents" instead of property owners, thus circumventing Measure 5 and 50 property tax limitations. Signed, Transportation Commissioner Sam Adams:

More manipulation from Mayor Creepy. This is supposed to get us to say, "We'd rather you just discontinue picking up the leaves." Instead, of course, we say, "We need to get this doped-up clown out of office soon."

The "fee" apparently is going to apply regardless of whether there are any trees in front of your place, and regardless of whether you'd rather sweep up the gutter yourself. Just for living here.

Let the protests, lawsuits, and petition drives begin! Anybody for a "Hell no, we won't pay" protest movement? And since every "resident" is liable, are they going to come after the two-year-olds if they refuse to pay their share?

The collective nervous breakdown of Portland continues.

Here's a bit of a flap regarding consumer matters right here in the Beaver State.

People aren't paying their local tax bills, and that's leading to stepped-up collection measures.

The second piece of election porn in three days from the Oregon League of Conservation Voters showed up in our snail mailbox yesterday. A glossy four-pager with a veritable font of advice on whom to vote for:

Inside, they've got endorsements on 33 races for various offices and two ballot measures.

My image of that organization as a group of level-headed defenders of the earth is diminished by this sort of thing. If you care that much about the environment, two pieces of shiny, four-color junk mail in three days is at least one too many. And what does voter-owed elections have to do with conservation? Into the recycling bin it goes.

Our property tax bill is here, and so it's time for our annual analysis to see which branches of local government are taking what from us for the year 2010-2011. Overall, our property taxes increased 2.69% over last year, and on a compounded basis over the last three years, our property taxes have risen 2.96% a year.

As ever, the City of Portland gets most of the money -- this year, $43.50 of every $100 we pay. Last year, it was $43.37. And of this year's $43.50, $11.12 goes for "urban renewal," and $10.92 goes to the police and fire pension "system." Those two items alone add up to more than half (50.78%) of what the city takes in. Multnomah County is getting $22.34 out of $100 this year, down from $22.41 last year. And so the city gets 13 cents more from our Benjamin while the county is losing 8 cents. The Portland public schools get $26.84 out of $100 this year, which is down 3 cents from last year.

On a percentage basis, the biggest increases were Portland "urban renewal," up 4.47% for the year; Tri-Met bonds, up 4.44%; Portland Community College construction bonds, up 3.69%; and Portland police and fire pension, up 3.06%. But in the larger scope of things, the Portland "urban renewal" and safety officer pension hits are much greater than the other two. The "urban renewal" increase works out to 48 cents out of $100 of tax, and the pension increase is 32 cents out of $100 of tax, whereas the PCC increase is only a nickel out of $100 of tax, and the Tri-Met increase is only 2 cents out of $100 of tax. Indeed, the "urban renewal" tax increase was greater than the total amount charged on the Tri-Met bonds.

Here's the tale of the tape for the current year. Check out where your money is going, Portlanders:

Previous years' analyses: 2009-2010, 2008-2009, 2007-2008, 2006-2007, 2005-2006, 2004-2005.

And now, on to our annual ritual. To pre-empt an obvious comment exchange:

Red: "How can property taxes go up when the value of my house went down?"

Blue: "You can thank Bill Sizemore for that one."

Red: "If it weren't for Bill Sizemore, I would have been taxed out of my house a long time ago."

Readers can take it from there.

Bob Tiernan, the head of the Oregon Republican Party, showed up on Portland TV last night right after Obama's speech for Kitzhaber. It was a little like the juggler who had to follow the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, and he seemed like a grouchy old guy saying "Get off my lawn." Would the Dudley camp have done better if they had had Dudley himself hooked up to speak? Or a young fresh fellow like Scott Bruun? Tiernan just came across as really, really old school. It was almost enough to make me hold my nose and vote for Kitzhaber.

Almost.

I'm still thinking about writing in myself. I still can't bring myself to vote for this guy.

This would have been a great place to set up a bungee jump.

A couple of additions to the betting lines in our charity pro football underdog game:

8 OAKLAND at Denver
3 PHILADELPHIA at Tennessee

I only wish the guy would be this outspoken more often:

It was a great talk on the national politics of the midterm election. Not much on Oregon specifics, but bound to energize the Democratic faithful.

I'm sure glad John McCain and Sarah Palin aren't running this country.

The actuaries who estimate how bad the City of Portland's debt is for police and firefighters' retirement and disability benefits have prepared a new report, and it shows that this blog's estimates of the city's unfunded liability for those benefits have actually been conservative. According to the report, the unfunded liability increased from $2.217 billion on July 1, 2008 to $2.549 billion on July 1, 2010. That's a 14.98% increase over the two years, or an annual compound rate of growth of 7.23%.

On our City of Portland debt clock, in the left sidebar of this blog, we've been using an annual growth rate of 6.5%. And so the situation is worse than we thought.

For those of you just joining us, if every police officer and firefighter in Portland stopped working right now and started collecting the pension benefits to which he or she is already entitled, the city would have to put aside $2.549 billion to pay off all of them and all of those who have previously retired. And that's assuming that the city can earn 4% on its investments -- good luck with that in this market.

In fact, the city has nothing put aside for these benefits -- nothing. It will all have to be paid out of future property taxes.

Besides the police and fire pensions, there are also problems with the city's other pensions under the Oregon PERS system. That's underfunded to the tune of nine figures these days as well. Plus there are retiree health care liabilities, all of which push the pension debt total well over $3 billion.

Portland is going broke fast, folks. Go by streetcar!

Anyway, we'll update our debt clock tonight to reflect the new numbers. We'll leave the growth rate at 6.5% going forward, but it's obvious that this debt can grow even faster than that. [Via Oregon Capitol News -- a great catch.]

The folks at Portland's "unique" Metro government have apparently convened a backroom cabal to figure out what kinds of people should sit on a more public panel whose leadership will be selected by the backroom cabal. The topic? "What does the public develop to attract the most private investment?"

How about a sense of fiscal restraint? D'ya think?

And remember, the people on the public panel won't have any agenda other than the public good. That goes without saying in Portland, where human nature doesn't apply in government.

And now for something completely different.

Yesterday's front page story in the O about the Portland mayor's inability to show up for important meetings, or even to let his staff know where he is all day, raises all sorts of questions. One of our readers articulated one of them well:

The news is that the Oregonian, and in particular, [David] Bragdon is actually questioning the mayor. Bragdon carried water, and dodged questions, around Mayor & Gov Goldy with his obvious and serious problems, but it wasn't the Oregonian asking those questions.

If Bragdon finally is claiming the emperor has no clothes then somebody must be waiting in the wings. Something is happening.

Who? And why now? What is the new road map politically for Stumptown?

Now Bragdon, another name long, long associated with the Goldschmidt machine, appears to be sending out the exact opposite signal: We're done with him.

The story was an easy underhand toss to O reporter Ryan Frank, whose body of work is not exactly what you'd call cutting-edge investigative journalism. And his editors, who have apologized for The Network for decades, splashed it out front where nobody could miss it. You couldn't make it clearer: The powers that be in Portland want Adams out come the next election, if not sooner.

Why? Well, probably because he's not delivering the pork. The West Hills set saw him as an easy mark for lots of juicy construction and consulting contracts, and those are in short supply these days. And so a slow-motion assassination has apparently begun.

Who's "waiting in the wings" to succeed Adams on behalf of the Goldschmidt entourage? My guess is Francesconi. Or Saltzman. Maybe Fireman Randy, although he's probably much too loose a cannon for the money crowd. But make no mistake: Yesterday was a big day in Portland political history.

You'll be leaving West Hayden Island very soon. Whenever Portland City Hall shows you one of these, you know they're about to do something nasty, and there's nothing you can do to stop them:

We complained yesterday that the mailer we received in support of Multnomah County Measure 26-114 was fraudulent, in that it claimed that the measure will be "getting the politicians out of the process" of creating a special taxing district for the library, when that's simply not true.

But the shenanigans with the flyer don't stop there. An outraged reader writes:

I was quite surprised when I looked on the kitchen table yesterday and saw a picture of my wife looking like she was a supporter of the new library district proposal. I asked about the flyer and she said that a couple years ago someone at the library was photographing patrons. They asked permission but didn't offer a release or anything like that. She is annoyed that it appears as if she endorses the ballot measure, which is not true. Using your photo to promote reading for families is different from using it for political purposes.

I am a little more upset than she is, but we won't be filing any lawsuits. However, we also won't be voting for yet another "harmless" layer of government. I made that mistake in 1978 when as a young nitwit I voted to approve the creation of Metro.

The photo in question is right above a big legend that reads "Yes for our libraries -- Yes on 26-114." Instead it should say, "This woman does not endorse 26-114!!!"

There oughta be a law against this sort of thing -- and in a public library, no less. And who paid the photographer? Where did the money come from? If the photos were shot years ago, the photographer couldn't have been paid out of campaign funds. Quite fishy.

We've blogged about our choices for elective offices, Multnomah County ballot measures, and Portland and Tri-Met ballot measures. That leaves the always entertaining Oregon statewide ballot measures, and here is where we're coming out on those:

70: Expanded veterans' loans. Cue "God Bless America." You dare not say no to the vets. Yes.

71: Legislature meets every year. They've got a lot of nerve. The most recent regularly scheduled "special" session was an enormous waste of time, pretty much proving that we don't need this. No.

72: Expands state borrowing. In case you haven't noticed, government debt at all levels is completely out of control, and will be a bigger drag on the quality of our children's lives than anyone is honestly talking about. Ted Wheeler is right -- the state needs to borrow less money, less often, not more. No.

73: Mandatory sentences for sex crimes and DUI. The sentences we now have are strict enough, and we're already spending enough money on our corrupt-looking corrections system, which the average person doesn't even want to know about. No.

74: More rational medical pot rules. The current laws regarding marijuana are insane. It's illegal, but only sorta illegal, and if you're sick, you can get a card to let you buy it, but you can still lose your job over it, and you have to buy it from some sleazy drug dealer on the corner, and if you grow your own, it's still a federal crime, not to mention some home invader who's going to hold a gun to your head, yada yada yada. We ought to treat pot like booze, and until then, all of this is pure foolishness. No endorsement.

75: Multnomah County casino. Who are these guys? And how many handshakes removed are they from the Mafia? Come to think of it, you could ask the same questions of the Indian casinos, who of course are screaming bloody murder against this measure. In the end, the state lottery people (another shady group) would like to put the tribes out of business, but in the meantime, the last thing Oregon needs is bringing in Harrah's or their ilk to compete for the gamblin' fools' money. No.

76: Lottery revenue dedicated to environmental causes. As we noted recently, the lottery money is better spent on the birds and the bees than on Milwaukie light rail, the UC Nike football program, and assorted other garbage that the state legislature might find worthy. Yes, the legislature will be handcuffed, but given their level of judgment, that's not an entirely bad thing. It's too bad we tax only stupidity and addictive personality for this purpose, but Oregon sold its soul on that issue a long time ago. Yes.

With that, I think we're ready to vote. Honey, get out the No. 2 lead pencil! And bring your ballot so that I can fill it out for you. Bring Grandma's, too -- it's in by her death certificate.

Does this mean he was too buzzed to show up?

The first lines for this week's games in our charity pro football underdog pool are up, and here is what they say:

13.5 CLEVELAND at New Orleans
13 BUFFALO at Baltimore
5.5 ARIZONA at Seattle
3 CINCINNATI at Atlanta
3 CAROLINA vs. San Francisco
3 WASHINGTON at Chicago
3 MIAMI vs. Pittsburgh
3 NEW YORK GIANTS at Dallas
3 MINNESOTA at Green Bay
3 NEW ENGLAND at San Diego
2.5 ST. LOUIS at Tampa Bay

Our official oddsmaker reports: "No Jacksonville/KC or Philadelphia/Tennessee lines as yet, likely because of the Jags' and Titans' uncertain QB situations. Also no Oakland/Denver." He''ll keep looking through Thursday.

Meanwhile, not too many points to be gained this week, unless you throw the long ball with Cleveland or Buffalo. Readers, see an underdog (in caps) that will win its game outright?

The ride home tomorrow could be a long one.

Here's another bit of election porn that showed up at the house yesterday:

Wow! Bob Stacey will create jobs! I'm glad there's one candidate out there who cares about jobs. Nobody else is talking about it.

Whom do we thank for this latest piece of mass mail?

I thought that group was a 501(c)(3) organization, forbidden from taking sides in an election. But now I see that they have both a 501(c)(3) and a 501(c)(4) organization over there, and this flyer must be coming from the latter.

I also see that Eric Lemelson's on the OLCV board. And since he appears to be the main bankroller of the Stacey campaign, the league's endorsement is not surprising.

But as somebody who's sick of condo towers wrecking Portland neighborhoods, and streetcars and green toys bankrupting the city government, I think it's time for a course correction at Metro. And Stacey, who seems a little like an Earl Blumenauer without the bow tie, ain't it.

In yesterday's batch of campaign come-ons in our snail mailbox was this wicked little glossy four-pager:

It's a flyer in support of the mysterious Multnomah County ballot measure setting the stage for the formation of a "library district." The mailing is offensive in a couple of ways. First of all, from the looks of it, you'd think that few white guys ever patronize the library. Trying to find a white male face on the flyer is straight outta "Where's Waldo":

  

But worse than that, much worse, part of the message here is highly misleading:

Get the politicians out of it -- are they kidding? Look at what the ballot actually says:

And here's the full text of the ballot measure itself. (They don't mail this to the voters any more, and so nobody actually reads what they're voting on.) It makes quite clear that regardless of what the voters do, the matter is still left up to a majority of the board of county commissioners:

And if the district is formed, the county commissioners will run it! To say that the measure is "getting the politicians out of the process" is nothing short of fraudulent.

This measure has a bad odor about it -- it's nothing but a setup for a new, permanent property tax for the library down the road. The fact that it's being sold in a highly misleading way makes it a clear case for a no vote.

(BTW, to whichever county legal beagle drafted this thing: It's ad valorem, not ad valorum. Look into it.)

Remember Randall Palazzo, the Portland infill developer who reportedly used to infuriate the neighbors where he built? Quite the charmer. "Randy Leonard said I could do whatever I wanted on my property" -- that guy. For a while he was on TV hawking his products -- they're "green," don'tcha know -- but apparently quite a few subcontractors complained that he was more than a little slow paying bills.

Well, now he's bankrupt. And the people who dealt with him and his company will be joining the neighbors in his fan club.

Mysterious absences just add to the many concerns about Portland's "unique" chief executive. And if the O is asking the hard questions, you know the problem must be both serious and obvious.

"I don't recall the specifics, but something pulled me away." We can just imagine.

Multnomah County has seven measures on the current ballot. In our view, there is only one worth voting for. Here's the whole list:

26-109: Repeal term limits. Are you kidding? The bad movie that the county turned into under Diane and the Mean Girls was the all-time poster child for term limits. No.

26-110: Commissioner running for another office. Should Deborah Kafoury get to run for Portland City Council, but keep her county commissioner gig just in case she loses? No.

26-111: Sheriff's and district attorney's salaries set by salary commission. Zzzzzzzzz.

26-112: County commissioner must live in district throughout term. Absolutely! You move out of your district, you're replaced. Not like one of our recently departed Sisters of Hawthorne. Yes.

26-113: Vacancy election dates. Hard to care much about this, but if there's a vacancy in a county office, it should be filled by election at the nearest opportunity, even if that's not May or November. No.

26-114: New library district. The come-ons for this one scream, "This is not a tax increase!" No, but isn't it the setup for one? The library's doing fine. The public isn't going to let the politicians mess with it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. No.

26-118: Property tax for Oregon Historical Society. The fact that the state doesn't want to support this organization reinforces what has always been our impression: that it's a Portland West Hills blueblood club. Remember when the historical society held onto Neil Goldschmidt's records and wouldn't let you see them unless you paid his lawyers to check them over first? Yeah. So if the taxpayers around the state won't support the historical society, then let the West Hills bluebloods pay for it with private contributions. What's that you say -- the rich people in Portland are too cheap? Well then, so are we. Times are tough. No.

Our ballots are here, and so it's time to make up our minds about the many, many ballot measures that we Oregonians get to vote on. Here are some easy ones, from the City of Portland and Tri-Met:

26-108: "Clean money" elections. An enormous waste of money, doing nothing but (a) guaranteeing lifetime tenure for incumbents, (b) enabling unelectable clowns to run for office on the public dime, and (c) blowing inordinate hundreds of thousands to elect somebody like Amanda Fritz, who could have and should have raised her own money for lawn signs and junk mail. No.

26-117: Property tax increase for fire trucks. If the city would stop wasting money on streetcars, bioswales, bicycle boxes, soccer stadiums, and aerial trams, it would have enough money in its budget for fire trucks. No.

26-119: Property tax extension for buses. If Tri-Met would stop wasting money on streetcars and insane rail projects like WES and now Milwaukie MAX, it would have enough money in its budget for buses. No.

On to the state and county measures shortly.

Absolutely nothing -- not even campaign fodder.

They only make it to No. 2 in the bowl game rankings. It appears that their schedule is too weak for unanimous top-dog acclaim, at least for now.

Who cares what some computer thinks? As an Oregonian, I'm proud of the Ducks -- at least, those not presently in police custody. They are truly the best team Nike can buy.

Not that it's any surprise.