- ILLUSTRATION BY FRANCOIS VIGNEAULT
A final vote on Commissioner Steve Novick and Mayor Charlie Hales’ $46 million “Portland Street Fund” plan has been moved back to December 17, in light of a handful of amendments put forward this morning with several more potentially due before next week.
The new date was announced before the Portland City Council unanimously agreed to make two substantial changes to the plan—an income tax and business fee meant to fund paving, maintenance, and safety fixes. The council agreed to consider a “sunset” clause long-sought by some opponents and potential supporter Commissioner Amanda Fritz. It also agreed to weigh firm assurances that the city won’t use the new money as an excuse to cut its current paving spending.
And a few more changes could be in the offing, due for a hearing next Wednesday, December 10:
• Novick is working with Commissioner Nick Fish on an amendment giving relief to “micro-businesses.”
• Novick’s working with Fritz to tweak the income tax—it’s based on brackets that levy a flat amount for everyone in a given income range, and Fritz has suggested shifting to percentages for each range. That would alleviate a criticism that people at the top of a range, paying a flat amount, would pay a smaller percentage of their incomes than people at the bottom of a range. That also could lead to fewer brackets overall.
• Novick also says there’s some discussion about making sure it’s clear and written in stone that both sides of the street fund must not only survive a council vote this month, but also a likely ballot challenge by oil lobbyist Paul Romain and the Portland Business Alliance.
That’s not a light threat, in light of polling (which you could quibble with) showing voters strongly supportive of a vote, but also with deep reservations about the substance of the plan. And Novick tells the Mercury he’s got some other thoughts about how to proceed if that ballot challenge should come to pass and then prove successful.
Given that groups advocating on transportation and poverty issues have already called for a more progressive option—along the lines of a tax on wealthy Portlanders that received 60 percent support in a city-funded poll earlier this year—Novick says he’d have to take that “logical” option “extremely seriously.”
And if he did, he said, it would land on the November 2016 ballot, in the heat of a presidential campaign that would draw the most progressive electorate possible.
“We will keep hammering and hammering at this,” Novick said of himself and Hales, calling them both “committed” to solving Portland’s transportation funding shortfall. (The city would need to spend $91 million a year on paving every year for a decade to catch up on its maintenance backlog—not including making other improvements.)
“If we’re not going to get there in any other way,” Novick says of raising street money, cautioning that he was now just speaking for himself, not Hales, “then going with a progressive option that polled at 60 percent support has to be a viable option.”
“I’ve told the PBA I don’t want to re-fight Measure 66[, a 2010 measure that raised state income taxes on the wealthy],” Novick says. “But if we have to, we have to.”
So he might be willing to have a vote on something someday if he’s almost certain he’ll win? Does that mean I shouldn’t be calling him “Steve Novote”?
“We will keep hammering and hammering at this,”
Not if we recall you bitch-asses.
@Chunty Short memory?
http://www.portlandmercury.com/BlogtownPDX…
@Euphonius wait ’til every last Portlander (except for PERS retirees, of course!) gets socked with a monthly bill. Wait ’til the small business owners and self-employed get double-dipped. Then we’ll see how easy it is to get those crooks out of office.
You guys always assume a groundswell of gubment-haters will rise up to follow you.
It seems a natural assumption: you holler that Novick and Hales are ‘crooks’ and both of your friends are in complete agreement. Oregonlive commenters seem to agree too. That must mean the whole city will spontaneously join your movement as soon as you give the word.
Logicians refer to this as the “Anonymous Choir” fallacy. Psychologists consider it a form of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. In politics, eccentric multimillionaires often get to indulge these kind of fantasies… You don’t happen to have a million dollars to put behind your theory, do you? If not, you’re not “eccentric” but are merely “crazy.”
You’re not the first to have this delusion, and sadly, you most likely won’t be the last.
Oh yes, only the 1% would complain about having a brand new MONTHLY TAX for almost every Portlander passed with almost zero public input, sold on the false premise that PBOT is “strapped for cash”.
Right, because only a greedy millionaire would distrust the government. Those dirty poor folks are so earthy and honest, so grateful for the government’s hard work– especially the one that brought them the Arts Tax (for operas and symphonies that they love and hold dear!). Yep, us fat cats are the only ones that are bold enough to dare question Street Fee, I mean Street fund, I mean Personal Income Tax, or wait– sorry– I mean the Peoples Transportation Liberation Act.
Obviously you’re one of those big-brained academics, so civic minded and concerned with the poor. How noble of you! Please, elevate the poor and underprivileged with your big ideas so I can concern myself with tossing my disgustingly overinflated $15-an-hour salary around on champagne and dancing girls. It’s not like I feel the potholes in my Rolls Royce anyhow.
With messaging like that, how can you possibly lose?