Dear economically illiterate city bureau chiefs - when you hike fees (taxes) for regulations - businesses cut back on said regulations.
That is all.

I wonder how many layoffs would be necessary if Randy Leonard took an unpaid furlough for the rest of his term.

D: You are blaming the weak housing market in the US, on permit fees in Portland? Wow.

Who is calling who economically illiterate?

Portland has very expensive and regulated permitting requirements.
I'm not blaming industry trends on city hall - just pointing out this example of what natural economics laws dictate versus how our city leaders try to solve such problems, thus making them worse.
IOW - their solutions to raise costs for private business - actually end up driving DOWN their revenue.

Note: the meeting with Leonard is scheduled for 8am tomorrow at the 1900 SW 4th Ave Building, Room 2500A - on the 2nd floor

D - spot on comment.

Also feeling snarky: Why doesn't Leonard just borrow some of the many new "policy advisory" FTE positions Adams created. I hear they are all highly and technically qualified and since Adams' office is in chaos I'm sure they can't get much policy advising done right now - I'm sure they will do a fine job running BDS. That and interns.

D: Developers in this city doesn't actually pay enough SDC fees to pay for the services that new development requires. Look at the Pearl and their problems with getting a school, if the city was smart, they would have charged the developers more money up front so that they'd have money to build that school, instead of relying on all the rest of us to pay for the services that that development requires. I mean, Portland is better than most cities in that regard, many cities have no SDC fees at all, but still they aren't high enough. If you are talking about permit fees, those go directly to BDS, and make up the bulk of their budget, which is exactly the way it should be, (again, unlike most cities, where the general fund pays for that sort of thing.) The story here is partly that there are a bunch of layoffs, but partly that there is too little work for too many people in that bureau. But the fees aren't particularly high, if you look at many fees, they reflect what it would cost to get a skilled professional to make a simple house call.

But that is besides the point, none of that is new this year, the problem this year is the US housing market. And if you were economically literate, you might have heard about that problem.

A school in the Pearl? But. But. Think of all the fusion Bistros you could put in the place of one school. It'd be a massive waste!

Happy post-Bloom's Day Everyone!

The dumbest city as far as business goes. Shockingly stupid.

Will the 2nd floor rest room be open?

We don't have to give back the neon rose do we?!

Matthew D - So you're comparing economically sound development decisions to the Pearl District?
Is fake New York considered a "livable" community now?

But Amy gets to stay, right?
'Cause that's important...
So, what is the appropriate sentence for a gay pedophile?

What about the fact that Paul Scarlett the director of BDS goes on a cruise for two weeks and isn't here to help his employees thru this hard and confusing time. He should be the first name on the layoff list ...the coward.