UNSURPRISINGLY, there’s already an air of doom hanging over Commissioner Steve Novick and Mayor Charlie Hales’ controversial push to raise millions in new revenue—via an income tax and business fee—for badly needed street paving and safety projects.
The day the plan came out, last Monday, November 10, the always-skeptical Portland Business Alliance (PBA) extended its middle finger—after spending months at the negotiating table, winning several concessions—and suddenly declared it couldn’t support any plan with an income tax.
Around the same time, potent petroleum-industry lobbyist Paul Romain all but promised a ballot referral—only to be joined by the PBA, finally, on Friday, November 14.
(For what it’s worth, transportation advocate Jonathan Ostar, director of OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon, has called the PBA’s sudden opposition “a stab in the back”—noting the time the PBA spent successfully softening the income tax, taken as a signal it would hold its nose on whatever emerged.)
That opposition amounts to a massive headwind in the face of what’s looking like a December 3 vote. And it’s precisely the kind of deep-pocketed threat that killed city hall’s last serious stab at raising transportation cash, back in 2008.
But it might be a blessing in disguise….