In the week since Commissioner Sam Adams’ $464 million street
fee plan passed the city council, it’s been subjected to a referral
effort, objected to by another city commissioner, slated for a repeal,
and will likely be replaced by a split-in-three street fee that (knock
on wood) won’t be kicked around so much.
Poor little street fee.
You could blame Paul Romain for the schoolyard fighting over
the fee, which would pay for transportation infrastructure improvements
like bike boulevards and street repaving. Romain, a lobbyist with the
Oregon Petroleum Association (OPA), had objected to the fee last year,
over what the OPA says are unfair costs to gas stations and
convenience stores.
But Romain got an assist from Mayor Tom Potter, who had
earlier criticized Adams for splitting the street fee into three parts.
Adams said he’d consulted with city attorneys and was protecting the
fee from a potential single-subject legal challenge. But Potter, in a
January 18 memo, said the split made it look like the council was
trying to “manipulate the outcome” and make it more difficult
for folks like Romain to refer it to voters (never mind that the
council manipulates the outcome by, uh, voting). Potter also undermined
Adams’ single-subject concerns, saying it wasn’t “a strong legal
reason” to split the ordinance.
Thanks to Potter’s chastising, Romain had plenty of ammo to
launch at Adams for putting the fee on the agenda in one piece, which
the council passed on January 30. As he helped a fuel company owner
file referral paperwork the next day, Romain cited the splitting and
reassembling as the reason his group backtracked on an earlier pledge
not to refer “the measures.”
“They’re just gaming the public, that’s all that they’re
doing,” Romain said. In a press release announcing the referral, chief
petitioner Lila Leathers also alluded to Potter’s memo, alleging that
Adams’ single-subject challenge concerns were “completely
fabricated.”
Hitting back, Adams points to Romain & Co.’s referral backflip
as evidence that they’ll do anything to stop the street fee, including
a possible single-subject challenge that would—at a
minimum—tie up the fee in court unnecessarily. “I have no
doubt that I can’t trust them now,” he says.
And it appears Adams can’t trust Potter, either. On February
5—a day before the council reconsiders the street
fee—Potter sent out a memo staking his opposition to the triple
ordinance. “We must place a single measure on the May ballot,” Potter
argued, superceding a referral and handing opponents yet another
talking point: “It also removes any argument that the council has
not allowed citizens to be heard directly on this issue.”