Thanks Amy for all the work you do... many people are bored to tears by this kind of minutia, but in reality it's meetings like this that can significantly shape policies which everyone will be talking about later. I for one love getting the head-start.

Dedicating ULF money to fixing the streets? What a great idea! I wonder why no one thought of that before?

SCOOP! Where's the Oregonian? Where's the Willamette Week? Where's the Tribune?

NO.WHERE. That's where.

What a bummer...this was a truly well-thought out plan that had lots of citizen input. Paying four bucks a month for vastly safer streets seems so reasonable to me, especially when I look at what we'd be paying for. I'm so sorry that Portland citizens couldn't see the big picture.

Let me get this straight. NW natural is going to raise rates by 30-40 PERCENT??? Holy Shoot, that is going to BANKRUPT families out of house and homes...
and please don't tell me this additional 'tax' the city will profit from is passed onto the consumer as well??
Amy, you should be writing about how criminal the rate increase is, and how the SURPLUS FUNDS should be used to help pay for the FUTURE FAMILIES IN NEED.

*sigh* Negligent myopia seems to be running rampant.

The people: You can make gasoline out of natural gas, (with the right refinery equipment.) And if you haven't noticed the price of gasoline recently, (neither have I, I started riding a bicycle after Katrina,) you can imagine that wholesale natural gas prices have gone up much like the price of gasoline. And since NW Natural has to buy gas at the wholesale market, they have to pass the price increase onto consumers or it just isn't worth it for them to buy it in the first place...

You want my advice? Insulate your house like crazy, if you rent, offer to insulate your unit if your landlord will pay for the materials. I spent most of Tuesday crawling under my house installing insulation, it isn't hard, if you know how to pound a nail and tie a knot in a piece of string, you can insulate a house. But the price of heating oil/natural gas/electricity is only going to go up from here, and insulation pays for itself in a year or two.

This city is wasting millions and millions of dollars right now.

There is nothing else to say on this matter.

"Portland, the city that wastes then whines about it"

Hey, you get the government you deserve, that's why we have that A-Hole in the white house and these nuts running Portland.