Moving the Goalposts

Portland Timbers fans are pushing hard for the votes they need on
city council to bring Major League Soccer (MLS) to Portland by
2011.

“The reason MLS is going to succeed in this town is that we don’t
just love the Timbers, we love Portland!” shouted Timbers fan Jeremy
Wright, into a megaphone outside city hall on Saturday afternoon,
February 28.

“Rose City ’til I die! Rose City ’til I die!” sang the 200 Timbers
fans gathered there with him. “I know I am, I’m sure I am, Rose City
’til I die….”

Wright urged the crowd to write, phone, or email the two undecided
members of city council—Nick Fish and Dan Saltzman—begging
them to join Randy Leonard and Sam Adams in supporting MLS.

“We’re assuming Amanda Fritz is a ‘no’ at this point,” Wright told
the Mercury, although Fritz insists she is waiting for a report
on MLS by Leonard’s task force before deciding which way to vote at a
council hearing on the issue, slated for March 11.

Leonard’s task force is still looking to plug a $20-40 million hole
in the $85 million budget required to renovate PGE Park in Southwest
Portland, and build a new stadium for the Beavers baseball team across
the river. Pressure is rising on Timbers and Beavers owner Merritt
Paulson to come up with the extra money.

Leonard’s office insists that “negotiations are still ongoing” with
Paulson over the size of the check he will write for the project.

Paulson has hired former Mayor Vera Katz as a consultant to shepherd
the deal through to completion, and also announced at a meeting of the
task force on Tuesday, February 24, that he will personally underwrite
the cost of the city’s bonds if the project fails.

“We’re structuring this deal so that there’s no risk to the city’s
general fund,” says Paulson. “This deal won’t affect the city’s basic
services.”

On February 25, Mayor Sam Adams led city council in a 4-1 vote
approving the biggest, most car-friendly option for the Columbia River
Crossing to Vancouver: 12 lanes.

Surprisingly, Portland’s environmental groups have so far refused to
openly criticize the supposedly green mayor’s decision to build a huge
new bridge. Instead, a group of private citizens have stepped up to
organize their own rally against the project, now set for April 5 in
Waterfront Park.

Adams reiterated his ambitious goal for Portland to become the most
sustainable city in the world at his sold-out State of the City Address
on Friday, February 28. But only 48 hours earlier, the mayor refused to
support Commissioner Amanda Fritz’s modest green amendment to his big
bridge proposal. Her motion to include environmental justice advocates
on a new bridge management committee died for lack of council
support.

The major advocacy group that has been pushing for a smaller,
cleaner option for the Columbia River Crossing is the Coalition for a
Livable Future (CLF). Last spring, CLF member and economist Joe
Cortright came out swinging against the 12-lane option, releasing a
report comparing the bridge’s $4.2 billion proposed price tag to
constructing “80 OHSU aerial trams” [“Bridge to Disaster,” Feature,
March 13, 2008].

Cortright says council has yet to answer basic questions about
funding for the bridge. But when asked whether Adams can still be
considered a green mayor, Cortright responded, “I’m not going to go
there. Let’s just say it’s not a green decision.”

CLF Co-Director Jill Fuglister says she was disappointed in the
12-lane option, but also had no comment on Adams’ vote, specifically.
And while the big bridge may create some big environmental
problems—like increasing vehicle traffic—the state’s go-to
environmental group, 1000 Friends of Oregon, has taken no stance on the
bridge debate, either. The group had no comment on Adams’ decision to
vote for 12 lanes.

The day after the council vote, Adams’ staff defended his green
reputation.

“Sam is definitely still a green mayor,” says Adams’ spokesman,
Roy Kaufmann. “We have a long time to work out all the details on the
project. We’re not wavering on our environmental objectives.”

Adams believes the management committee’s oversight of the project
will lead to carpool lanes and mass transit options. In his speech on
Friday, Adams compared this ongoing oversight to a “thermostat.”

But independent city transportation activist Chris Smith was first
in line to question the mayor’s plan at City Club. “I imagine there
will be disagreements between Portland and other parts of the region
about whether this thermostat should be set at 64 or at 72,” said
Smith. “And I’m just afraid we’ll build the furnace that will heat the
city to 82.”

“Where’s the big outcry from an advocacy group leading the charge on
this thing?” asks Jonathan Maus, whose website BikePortland.org lit up with dozens of
angry comments about the bridge last weekend. “The project is going
forward exactly the way the highway planners want it and you haven’t
heard one peep about it, except for testimony at city hall.”

Maus also says he has seen a lot of disappointment about the Bicycle
Transportation Alliance’s (BTA) tepid criticism of the bridge: BTA boss
Scott Bricker told Maus last Friday that “it’s not about the number of
lanes, it’s about the bridge’s impact on the community.”

The BTA’s Michelle Poyourow clarified the group’s stance
more forecefully on Tuesday: “We are disappointed in the council
vote,” she said.

Meanwhile, outraged citizens have taken it upon themselves to
spearhead a protest. When syndicated Portland bicycle columnist Joe
Kurmaskie posted two comments online proposing a rally against the
12-lane decision, he received emails from 100 people in 48 hours, he
says.

“I had not stepped up at the city council meetings because I thought
for sure this would be killed—because we have the sustainability
mayor,” says Kurmaskie. “It’s very much a stab in the back for me.”

Ironically, Kurmaskie’s planned Waterfront Park rally was plotted
over tables at the bar Vendetta on N Williams last Saturday
afternoon—not in the boardroom of one of Portland’s environmental
nonprofits.

“Citizens have had to fill in for the leadership void,” says
Kurmaskie, ruefully.