The Oregon regional government is determined to build a hotel for its failed convention center, as they are certain that a hotel will finally make the center a success. That's what they said when they wanted to double the size of the center, too: "This time, it'll work!" Voters turned them down. Metro doubled it anyway. Today, it loses over ten million dollars a year.
Now, they're pushing for a 600-room hotel, because then it'll succeed - never mind that it hasn't worked in cities across the country; things are different here. They want to issue nearly $80 million in taxpayer bonds to help pay for it - and they don't want you to vote on it. So they're pushing a bill in Salem that would exempt their project from a vote:
Opponents of a proposed 600-room Hyatt hotel at the Oregon Convention Center want voters to have a chance to weigh in on the project and its $78 million in taxpayer subsidies. They are currently in court battling Metro, the regional government that’s backing the hotel and wants to avoid a vote.
Metro is now trying to sidestep the court battle by asking state lawmakers for a bill that would assure the project is exempt from a vote.
If this was such a moneymaker, Hyatt would build it themselves. The corruption continues; let the party go on!
