Field Notes Transportation User Fee Non-Residential Business Meeting 9/15/14 Yesterday afternoon the Transportation User Fee Non-Residential Business Workgroup met for what will probably be the last time. Two months ago I was thrilled to be asked to participate in creating an alternative to the devastating Street Fee. I imagined that I would sit in a room with capable transportation and revenue experts as well as smart engaged people from the business community, and we would put our heads together to come up with a solution that fixed the streets and protected small businesses and our most vulnerable citizens. It didn’t turn out that way. I did get to sit in that room, but we were never given the space to generate ideas. We couldn’t come up with an amazing solution because we were never asked to do so. Instead, Fred Miller and the PBOT staff threw ideas at us in such a managed way that they always got the answers they wanted. Ideas were floated and if one person agreed with them it was taken for consensus, but if four people disagreed with them it was deemed not to be a majority of the group and as such discarded. Possible funding mechanisms changed each time we met, always presented at the end of a meeting to limit questions and in a way that never allowed for deeper discussion. Even on the last day, the funding mechanism was only given 20 minutes on the agenda and was never actually discussed. Fred Miller loves to do a “thumbs up” vote for agreement, but at no point in the last meeting of this workgroup did he ask us to vote on the funding mechanism that will soon be labeled as ours. When it comes out of this committee in a report written by Miller and PBOT staff, it will not truly represent the workgroup charged to create it. As a member of that group, I have no ownership of it, and in the end this workgroup will be blamed for a funding mechanism we neither created nor voted on. It is hard not to be disheartened by this experience. I believe in our political system and that it is my duty not just to vote but to also fully participate. I have spent the past two months participating in a process that has left me sad and a little cynical, but also more determined than ever to change it. No matter what tax method they decide to say that these workgroups came up with, we must make sure that the people of Portland have the final say. We are not done until we get to vote. -- Ann Sanderson
Posted on: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 15:29:35 +0000
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