UPDATE: Chris Warner, chief of staff to Steve Novick, now tells the Mercury there was a misunderstanding in an earlier conversation. The street fee will not be $12, he says. Despite a conversation about the $12 mentioned in the fee sheet, Warner had meant to say only that the amount generally will be shared tomorrow. He’s not saying what the amount is.
ANOTHER UPDATE: It now looks like the actual proposal will be $11.56 per month.
Original post:
To date, discussion around a potential “street maintenance fee” has centered around two options— an $8 monthly fee for households (with an attendant cost for businesses) or a $12 monthly fee. Mayor Charlie Hales and city Commissioner Steve Novick haven’t indicated which they’ll put before city council next week.
But the Mercury‘s learned Hales and Novick have settled on the $12 option. .
Chris Warner, Novick’s chief of staff, confirms a $12 fee proposal will be announced tomorrow, with a discounted rate of $8 a month for low income households.
That’s borne out by documents that the mayor and Novick have been circulating around town. The president of the St. John’s Boosters is sharing a fee schedule he says the pair of officials gave him just yesterday. Here’s the top of that document, dated May 14, which sets out the residential fees Hales and Novick have in mind.
“I attended a meeting with Mayor Hales and Commissioner Novick this morning to discuss the proposed ‘street fee,'” Derek Shaw posted on a Facebook page for St. Johns residents. “Currently this decision is going to be made by the mayor and council without a vote of the citizens. They are trying to move quickly (and quietly) to make a decision and may do so before the end of the month.”
As Willamette Week reported yesterday, Hales and Novick plan to put a proposal before city council next week.
It’s tough to say whether the fee structure for businesses presented on the new documents is different from one PBOT’s handed out in recent weeks [PDF]. Businesses are classified differently in each. Warner says the document is only to give business owners an idea of the range they might pay. The city will unveil a fee calculator tomorrow that will offer a more-concrete notion.
“The important thing is the calculator,” Warner says.
Under the proposed fee schedule, which is based on estimated monthly trips a business generates, day care centers could be charged anywhere from $136 to $981 a month, with an estimated average of $452. A “book superstore” (we’re looking at you, enormous bookstore in the Pearl) would pay between $150 and $286, with an average of $239. Fast food restaurants could pay anywhere from $144 to a whopping $2,894 per month (average: $846). Large government office buildings could pay as much as $3,435 a month. And gas stations, which might have a crucial say in this fee, might pay $37 to $467 a month.
Here’s part of the math that goes into those calculations.
The decision to go with $12 per month over $8 has would have implications beyond just more money. The city estimates it could raise $53 million a year with a $12 fee, compared to $34 million for the smaller tax. But the city’s also said it would spend revenues from the more-expensive option differently than it would with an $8 fee. Under the $12 option, much more money will got toward safety improvements (like crosswalks, flashing beacons, bike lanes), than it would with the lesser amount. See?
- PBOT
Shaw, the St. Johns booster, says the mayor explained the city wants to avoid a vote on the street fee. As we noted earlier today, the last legitimate street fee proposal was killed in 2008 for fear it couldn’t withstand a public vote.
“Hales stated this morning that he did not want to see this go to a public vote because the measure’s campaign would cost the City too much,” Shaw writes on Facebook. “The Mayor said that he would prefer that Portlanders let he and the other council members know if they oppose the new fee (tax) and to recommend other ways to increase funding for the Bureau. So, I would humbly recommend that you each do exactly that.”
Great. What’s the discount for all the Portlanders who live with 60+ miles of impassable, unpaved streets? Or does the money go toward paving their neighborhoods right off the bat?
Also raising water rates tomorrow. Congrats, dipshits.
Fuck, this is the worst idea since their last shitty idea.
I see from the rate schedule that it doesn’t forget the churches, clinics, cemeteries, etc. Some churches may pay up to $1000 per month. Sweet!
Hey Stevie, the check is in the mail with my arts tax. Fucker.
Once Novick get his own tax, every commissioner’s gonna want one! Thanks for giving me 144 reasons a year to hope you and Charlie will be one-termers, Steve.
I agree with everyone else – voting for this seems like political suicide, especially if its rushed through without a ton of public consensus-building.
I assume this would be rolled into property taxes, but that assumption was wrong when it came the arts tax, so who knows.
Blabby,
I’ve taken the liberty of developing instructions for alleviating your emotional trauma:
1) Call 1-800-UHAUL 4U, rent a truck.
2) Pile you cats and other sundry shit in it.
3) Drive the UHAUL east/southeast on highways 84, 191, 491, 550 and 40 until you arrive in Dallas.
4) Move in to a mcmansion, complete with people from other countries paid token amounts to serve your every whim.
YOU ARE WELCOME!
As Blabby pointed out on another thread, though, Colin, incumbents in Portland almost never lose. So the commissioners get cocky as hell. Trying to force every new “fee” to be put to a vote seems to be our only recourse that’s very likely to succeed.
And speaking of sneaking through major policy changes, will no one ask questions of the slick move to regulate short term rentals through the RICAP process?
How very convenient that we landed the AirBnB NORTH AMERICAN HEADQUARTERS around the same time that we will be the first city with a way to regulate them?
(Where’s SMirk’s/Dirk’s investigative journalism when we need it?)
@Todd, Incumbents in Portland don’t lose because people aren’t upset enough with them to make candidacies viable. It’s not like it’s super expensive to run a campaign here, and it’s literally never been easier to get mass funding. In other words, the lack of challengers indicates the free market has determined the councilors are doing a good job on the whole.
Voters aren’t completely stupid, especially when it comes down to an issue as simple as “should your already-ridiculous property taxes jump 3-10 percent to pay for something that doesn’t really seem like a pressing problem?”
I don’t want to move. I want you children to grow up.
They won’t write about AirBnB because they like the company. The Mercury is like a liberal Fox News. If the story doesn’t fit their narrative, they simply don’t talk about it.
“Voters aren’t completely stupid, especially when it comes down to an issue as simple as “should your already-ridiculous property taxes jump 3-10 percent to pay for something that doesn’t really seem like a pressing problem?””
Actually Portlanders voted to do that just two years ago. What city are you watching?
I don’t get it – what’s wrong with taxing buildings that attract traffic in order to pay for street maintenance? How else are we going to pay for it?
I live on a gravel road in St Johns with potholes the size of kiddy pools. Exactly what will my maintenance fee go towards, a fucking lifeguard?
@Blabby, if about 60% of us approved it, we can’t really blame council, can we? Further, the arts tax was very clear about what was being funded (if not about how the funds would be collected).*
I know they haven’t even tried to roll the thing out yet, but as everyone else is saying: to justify this big hike they need to lay out in black and white exactly who is getting what (and when) in return for buying into this.
* See Statement: http://bit.ly/1nfO7UU
Instead of a flat license fee, Oregon should charge for license plates like the state of Washington. By the value of your vehicle. This would be a much fairer way to do it. Why should someone who lives in PDX but has no car pay for a street maintenance fee? Makes no sense to me.
“Why should someone who lives in PDX but has no car pay for a street maintenance fee? Makes no sense to me.”
People can’t be this naive. They just can’t be.
I am appalled by this and I’m tired of all these fee/taxes that keep coming up in Portland. Where does all that money that the Lottery generates go? Supposed to help the schools but I don’t see it. I’ve lived here most of my life but don’t see it for retirement. Can’t afford the high property tax, income tax, and all these fees ( tax ) that keep coming up. There is no mention of when this fee would stop. When the streets are completed? Is this forever?
From comments here, people don’t like the state of the roads AND they are mad as hell about having to pay to fix them. Do you people think there’s a pothole fairy?
No Matt, but there is the huge pile of money the city already collects through taxes. And there’s also options other than a regressive tax. And something so substantial should at least be put to a vote.
In your defense, a pothole fairy seems much more realistic than a Portland City Council that functions as servants of the people.