Transportation funding options, with your host… Sam Adams!
Well, I got there FAR TOO LATE to get a seat, although I was able to lurk in a corner for a while where I took, this - the Worst Picture Ever Posted to This Blog (TM). There was HUGE turnout for the transportation town hall meeting last night, with many neighborhoods represented. After hanging about for a bit, and asking a question, I retreated to the quieter, cooler side room equipped with a TV feed.
Without deconstructing the whole session, the gist of it is this: This is step one in a long lobbying campaign for a shiny new assortment of taxes that are coming our way. The City will be happy to repair streets and bridges, and install sidewalks and curbs, as soon as we agree to pay for it all. Oh, and Sam was none too happy to have the bikes-vs-cars crowd hijacking his meeting, thank you very much. Still, I think he did a good job presenting the facts and potential solutions, all the while doing the best he could to soft-pedal the hard sell that will have to come sooner or later if any of these “funding options” are to become reality. It was nice to see so many people come out for this type of issue. Transportation can be one of the wonkier local government issues to begin to get involved with, but it touches on so many of the things we value, that we really need to be informed and involved if possible.
Once again, it is clearly obvious why Sam had such an easy time getting elected. He knows how to work a room, and doesn’t feel “political” in the way that, for instance, Dan Saltzman does. I have no problem with Dan, but these two men give off a very different impression when addressing and handling large groups.
I must admit, guiltily, that I had planned all along to link to Amanda Fritz’s blog for the writeup on this event, knowing that she’d deliver far more information than I would ever be interested in recapping. Amanda didn’t disappoint, so go to her blog and read her writeup on the event, here.
There’s discussion options, email signup, the survey some of us took (although not apparently a digital copy of Sam’s Powerpoint deck, which is too long for me to scan) at www.commissionersam.com. EDIT: The powerpoint is up now, in PDF format (619K) - download it here….
June 20th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Thank you for the write-up and links.
Props to Sam for being willing to take on this issue. For decades PDOT’s refrain has been “We can’t, can’t, can’t do anything”. Finally someone is willing to consider that it is in fact possible to do something. That alone says a lot about Sam. And his slides look like a good presentation (I wasn’t at the meeting).
It’s kind of fun to imagine SW with sidewalks and bike lanes, at least on the main arterials. What a world of difference it would be, especially for kids.
June 20th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
It looks to me that they held the meeting in the Sr. Center lounge? is that correct? and I seem to see TV cameras, too…what was the vibe like?
June 21st, 2007 at 7:40 am
It was very crowded. Apparently the auditorium was booked, so the room was standing room only with overflow into the usual MNA meeting room. There were at least two TV channels there, plus community media and the City’s own TV. I talked to a reported from the Trib on the way out and several people were getting grabbed for on camera interviews from time to time. I think that Sam may have been taken by surprise at the heavy pro-bike comment crowd, but all in all it seemed like a good meeting where many people got a chance to have their say.
June 22nd, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Wow. In four days, The Villager went from anonymous blogger to quoted in the Portland Tribune:
Adams takes Portland street plan to the people
“Make no mistake, this is the beginning of a hard-core lobbying campaign,” Southwest homeowner Mark Myers said at the end of Tuesday’s meeting in Multnomah Village.
Myers and several others who spoke to the Portland Tribune after the meeting said they were not automatically opposed to paying more to fix Portland roads.
http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=118246339050432900
June 22nd, 2007 at 2:17 pm
Now now - they just caught me because I ducked out before the last slide. He had/has no idea of my “semi secret ID” - yeah, it looks like I’m coming out all over doesn’t it.