(Bending over to make it easier for her - did I remember to wipe? No matter.)
Only one other elected official attended last Wednesday’s Portland Business Alliance breakfast forum where Oregon Gov. Kate Brown was the featured speaker, and he wasn’t even from Portland. He was Metro Councilor Craig Dirksen, the former mayor of Tigard.
Brown could have used the support of her fellow Portland Democrats. She was repeatedly challenged by business leaders in the audience for endorsing Ballot Measure 97, the corporate tax increase on the Nov. 8 general election ballot. Although Brown said the decision was the hardest of her political career, questioners continued asking whether she understands the measure.
Well, that's easy: Brown has never made a hard decision in her life-long career as a Democrat politician, so she went with her public employee union donors' wishes and endorsed their measure. Understanding things has never been in her playbook.
Meanwhile, get ready to party on October first!
Months before the Oregon Department of Transportation asks the Legislature for a massive increase in taxes and fees to support new spending on roads and bridges, the agency plans to “celebrate” a newly completed project that went $230 million over budget and seven years past the original due date — all to straighten a 10-mile stretch of highway.
That fiasco was worse than the "Cover Oregon" disaster. They went low-bid and did the "straightening" project on an active landslide. They spent $365 million to straighten the road to eliminate the hairpin curves by the time all was said and done. They spent $20 million on four brand-new bridges that had to be blown up because the landslide was taking them downhill. ODOT claims that they have learned from these mistakes. That seems doubtful.
What's surprising is that the professional litigants in the environmeddlist community didn't file lawsuit after lawsuit to further increase the costs to taxpayers.
It will be interesting to see whether or not ODOT replants the clearcuts now that they've "stabilized" the landslide.
