HIGH EXPECTATIONS Blazers’ Camp — SEE SPORTS, B1
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There won’t be much drama in EDITION HIGH EXPECTATIONS Blazers’ camp — SEE SPORTS, B1 TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2014 • TWICE CHOSEN THE NATION’S BEST NONDAILY PAPER • PORTLANDTRIBUNE.COM • PUBLISHED TUESDAY AND THURSDAY GREATER PORTLAND PortlandTribune State road funds stuck in traf c Lawmakers wrangle barriers to paying for highway, bridge work By PETER WONG The Tribune Oregon lawmakers next year will face re- newed questions about how to pay for main- taining roads and moving people and goods. HOME But so far, there’s more of a consensus among the numerous interest groups about what the mon- ey should go for — than on how to raise the money. Advocates say the focus will be on fi xing existing roads and bridges — far less glamorous politically than new construction — and that the 2015 Legis- SWEET lature also will have to take into account other forms of transportation. “It’s likely that this package needs to be multi- modal,” says Craig Honeyman, legislative director for the League of Oregon Cities, who has been mak- ing presentations in several cities about league CAMP priorities. That in itself will set any new fi nancing plan apart from two other recent efforts, which focused (FOR THE NEXT 30 MONTHS) on major bridge and new road projects. “We hope we can go arm in arm to the Legisla- ture with a package,” says Mike McArthur, execu- Right 2 Dream Too celebrates its third anniversary next week, and spokesman Ibrahim Mubarak says he expects the camp to remain as is for another two-and-a-half years. tive director of the Association of Oregon Counties. Although specifi c proposals have not yet been agreed on, one of them is to link future increases in the state gasoline tax — now 30 cents per gallon — with the Consumer Price Index or some other n Right 2 Dream Too celebrates its third anniversary measure of infl ation. Other vehicle fees could also be linked. Indexing has been proposed before, but lawmak- as the clock ticks slowly on move to new site See ROADS / Page 9 one of this would have happened if the city had STORY BY let Michael Wright set PETER KORN Nup food carts on his downtown property. PHOTOS BY The Right 2 Dream Too home- less encampment at Northwest JAIME VALDEZ Burnside Street and Fourth Ave- nue will celebrate its third anni- versary Oct. 11, right about the campers from the private property time Wright and other owners of they lease. Right 2 Dream Too was the property start receiving their prepared at the time to sue the $10,000-a-month payouts from city for a series of steadily in- the Portland Development creasing fi nes based on the asser- Commission. tion that city code doesn’t allow Both events would have been urban campgrounds. considered highly unlikely a year In June, the city appeared to TRIBUNE FILE PHOTO ago, when pressure from Pearl have found a solution when it Right 2 Dream Too members reinforce the homeless encampment in advance of Oregon lawmakers are trying to fi gure out ways to District and Old Town developers winter weather. Meanwhile, the site’s property owners are poised to start pay for repairs to existing highways and bridges as had the city poised to remove the See DREAM / Page 2 receiving $10,000 a month from the city. gas tax funds dwindle. City’s island plans put Quirky memorial honors Fritz neighbors on edge Costumed friends wants,” said Pam Ferguson, who gather to remember Is the Port of Portland represents 440 families living in being a ‘bully’ to get a manufactured home complex commissioner’s blocks from the potential marine Hayden industrial site? terminals. husband Just eight months earlier, the By STEVE LAW port withdrew its request to By JIM REDDEN The Tribune have the city annex its 800 acres The Tribune on West Hayden Island and re- Plans for marine trade ter- zone 300 of the acres to allow ma- Hundreds of people from minals on West Hayden Island rine industrial terminals. The all walks of life showed up are back on the table — but port backed off when it became in downtown Portland Sun- not if neighbors and environ- clear the Portland City Council day afternoon to celebrate mentalists have their way. would not ease the strict envi- the life of Dr. Steven Fritz, A parade of critics bashed the ronmental remediation and oth- the husband of Commission- Portland Bureau of Planning and er terms approved by the Plan- er Amanda Fritz. Sustainability and Port of Port- ning and Sustainability Commis- Steven Fritz, a psychiatrist land last week, charging them sion as preconditions for the an- with a “back door” effort to re- nexation. The port said those See MEMORIAL / Page 6 vive industrial development on terms were too costly to make a the island. marine trade terminal develop- City planners, in a draft of ment pencil out, on what is a Portland’s new comprehensive strategic site for such a project land-use plan, included 300 acres along the Columbia River. on West Hayden Island among Many residents — and some the city’s industrial lands avail- planning commissioners — were able for future development, in miffed that the West Hayden Is- order to meet a state mandate to land issue was back before the provide adequate land for future commission, but this time with- jobs. out the environmental and other Several nearby residents and conditions approved late last environmentalists panned the year by commissioners. idea last Tuesday, testifying at “Others have disregarded the the fi rst public hearing on the careful work you did over a year comp plan before the Planning ago,” said Hayden Island resi- and Sustainability Commission. dent Timme Helzer. Now city TRIBUNE PHOTO: ADAM WICKHAM “The Port of Portland is the planners want to go in the “op- Tiffany Lee Brown of New Oregon Arts and Letters and her son Gusty Berger-Brown, 4, sign cards for the bully in the sandbox here; it Fritz family during Sunday afternoon’s memorial for Dr. Steven Fritz, who was killed Sept. 24 in a collision found another way to get what it See ISLAND / Page 7 on Interstate 5 near Salem. “Pamplin Media Group’s pledge is to Portland Tribune TACKLING THE IRONMAN deliver balanced news that re ects the stories of our communities. Thank you IN EMILY’S MEMORY for reading our newspapers.” Inside — SEE LIFE, PAGE B10 — DR. ROBERT B. PAMPLIN JR. OWNER & NEIGHBOR A2 NEWS The Portland Tribune Tuesday, September 30, 2014 Dream: City paying site ‘earnest money’ n From page 1 reached an agreement to buy the controversial property for $1.2 million. But like every- thing else associated with Right 2 Dream Too, the deal is complicated. The sale doesn’t officially go through until the 70 or so homeless Right 2 Dream Too residents leave the property. Then the city can sell it to a developer who might want to put up student housing or a restaurant or something else in keeping with the city’s vision for Old Town/Chinatown. The city’s deal has Wright and fellow property owners receiving $10,000 a month from the Portland Develop- ment Commission for every month Right 2 Dream Too stays in place and Wright and his partners are kept waiting for their $1.2 million. That’s up to a maximum of 30 months, which means the property owners can receive $300,000 on top of their $1.2 million. In re- ality, that makes the sale price $1.5 million, except, again, the deal is not that simple. If Right 2 Dream Too finds another site and moves before 30 months are up, the proper- ty owners will still get the full $300,000. If 30 months pass and Right 2 Dream Too hasn’t moved, Wright will have to re- turn his $10,000 a month pay- ments to the city. The city can even foreclose on the property TRIBUNE PHOTOS: JAIME VALDEZ to get its money back. Right 2 Dream Too member Kirsten Everett works on a new sign during a recent maintenance day at the homeless camp. Earnest money for site All of which creates a series three years of operation, Right of loopy incentives and disin- “There are people living 2 Dream Too has taken in 90 centives that started when outside all over the city. homeless campers who later Wright invited Right 2 Dream moved into more permanent Too to set up tents on his prop- I’m very interested in housing. Portland police offi- erty, greatly, he admits, out of other Right 2 Dream Too cers have been outspoken in spite because the city wouldn’t praising the way Right 2 allow him to lease his land to models.” Dream Too campers police food cart operators. — Amanda Fritz , their property and even assist The $10,000-a-month pay- City Commissioner them in efforts to damp down ments are a form of earnest Right 2 Dream trouble emanating from near- money, says PDC spokesman Too spokesman by Entertainment District Shawn Uhlman. “What PDC Mubarak, spokesman for Ibrahim nightclubs. has said to Mr. Wright and his Right 2 Dream Too, has insist- Mubarak says But Mubarak recognizes co-owners is, by providing this ed that any new site be close the city has that if 30 months pass and his funding to you every month, to the downtown and Old found homeless campers haven’t you can’t sell the property to Town social services used by prospective sites moved to a new site, Michael someone else,” Uhlman says.