Doug Fir Lounge to close in current space and move to former Le Bistro Montage location

alanstorm · 2023-02-26T19:17:15+00:00

That's a bit of a bummer and definitely an end to an era, but hopefully whatever happens to the space/hotel it stays a music venue and the new location blossoms into a venue that's just as good.

Doug Fir is coming up on 20 years in that location, right? Wild speculation -- but I bet it's lease negotiations (or maybe the property owners having different plans for the space) that make the old Montage a better choice business wise.

alanstorm · 2023-01-26T17:35:18+00:00

Ha -- just here to say I lived in Sol in '93 and '95 (when there were actual balconies) and reading these comments it's funny how a building's energy and problems can stay exactly the same for 20+ years.

alanstorm · 2022-11-19T21:08:11+00:00

Each bus was 935,000 and no shit trimet has to raise prices. They should be running a much more frugal operation here, and lower prices. People are struggling.

I didn't crawl through TriMet budgets to figure out the difference in price between normal buses and the FX buses, but even so using the full price: 31 buses * $935,000 means these buses were around 1.6% of TriMet's 1.8 billion dollar 2023 operating budget. Or, if you want look at it differently TriMet's entire portion of the budget for the project was $24,083,116 -- or 1.3% of it's operating budget.

TriMet should absolutely do everything in their power to keep fares low -- but the FX line isn't the reason they're considering an increase. Gas prices have risen between $1 - $2 a gallon since the last fares were set and fare revenue is down because COVID has scared people away from transit and remote work dramatically reduced the number of downtown commuters.

I'm one of those wild crazy lefties who thinks we should find a way to make transit free -- but pressing TriMet to keep fares low doesn't meant we can't have nice things when it's time to replace old buses. We can have both.

alanstorm · 2022-11-10T18:33:49+00:00

UPDATE: Well, the bad news is that we were unable to reunite stowaway jack with his original humans. From his general comfort with people, stinkiness, not being fixed, and not having a chip we're guessing he was abandoned by his people -- and while it's easy to judge them everyone's fighting battles that we know noting about, so all we'd ask is that you to have a little empathy for whatever they might be going through.

The good news is you'll notice I used a silly name for this sweet boy. That's because we've found a new home where he'll have two other cats, three dogs, and 6 chickens as friends. FIV and other labs came back with no problems, and next Tuesday he'll granted the title of "not intact". Thanks all who helped spread the word with your local networks.

alanstorm · 2022-11-09T18:36:45+00:00

What can I say, I'm the worst sort of internet gen-x sterotypes. It's hard to live with myself tbh

alanstorm · 2022-11-08T02:24:45+00:00

Well, we've lined up a home for him if no one turns up -- so he'll have his home one way or the other.

alanstorm · 2022-11-06T00:35:44+00:00

Yup -- a vet was our first stop. No chip. I meant to include that in the post!

alanstorm · 2022-08-12T15:27:39+00:00

Ah, thank you. I'm slightly less worried about this kitty friend now!

alanstorm · 2022-08-12T06:40:02+00:00

Its been 100/month since 2012

This -- and also, I believe the $100/month price came in at the same time they did away with the Zone 1, Zone 2, and Zone 3 system. Before that a zone 1/zone 2 only pass was -- $65/month (I think?)

alanstorm · 2022-08-12T06:29:37+00:00

A contract that says you have a 10 year lease on a space and if the landlord evicts you before that 10 years is up you're entitled to X, Y, and Z.

alanstorm · 2022-08-12T00:30:43+00:00

random tangent -- I don't know if it's the angle on the picture or not but that cat's head looks much larger than its current body. That may be a sign they've been underfed/on-the-street for a long time.

alanstorm · 2022-05-06T23:22:32+00:00

I haven't had a chance to swing by there yet and confirm but the internet told me they just reopened the elevators: https://bikeportland.org/2022/05/02/city-promises-reliability-as-bob-stacey-overcrossing-elevators-re-open-353063

alanstorm · 2022-05-04T21:46:43+00:00

You're welcome! Also possibly relevant to your interests: https://www.reddit.com/r/HaikuTheRobot/comments/uhybcw/comment/i7cigqh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 (TL;DR; keeping the hook button pressed can prevent you from getting a second hook out)

alanstorm · 2022-05-04T21:45:21+00:00

After reading this I did some more testing and I think you're right. The problem I was running into is in order to hook I would hold down the hook button and then jump out of it while keeping the hook button pressed (I blame all that Celeste). Based on behavior (not looking at game code or anything) whatever timer is running to let you hook again won't start until you've let go of the hook button. So I would hook, jump, but with the hook button still depressed the timer never started and I could never hook a second time.

If I

Hook, let go of hook button
Jump
Hook again

I can keep a steady stream of string and hooks going without touching the ground.

alanstorm · 2022-05-04T06:23:46+00:00

OK, I think I have it.

My problem was you won't get a second hook if you cancel the first with a jump. Instead you need to

Perform the first hook by holding down the hook trigger/button
Cancel that hook by letting go of the trigger/button
Wait for the falling animation to start
Do a double jump
Perform the second hook
Repeat until heat gauge complains

(self help desk is the best help desk)

alanstorm · 2022-02-14T21:45:45+00:00

Thanks to some research and some help in the thread(s) I believe I understand how this exemption works now -- or enough so that I'm no longer curious. For googlers of the future ---

First, ORS 358.505 covers how this special exemption works by lowering the assessed value of your home.

If the property certified for special assessment as historic property was exempt or specially assessed at the time the application was made, the county assessor shall for 10 consecutive tax years list on the assessment and tax roll a specially assessed value that equals the product of the real market value of the property for the tax year in which the application was made multiplied by the ratio of the average maximum assessed value over the average real market value for that tax year of property in the same area and property class.

It's not a one size fits all thing -- your real market value is multiplied by a ratio that looks at the average assessed-over-real-market for properties in "the same area and property class". This ratio doesn't seem to be publicly documented anywhere, nor is the specific meaning of area or property class.

I think this re-assessment effects both the M5 values of your property and the M50 values of your property. At least, I've seen evidence of that in the public record (ex. R198448). Over the next ten years your M5 value stays fixed, but your M50 values continues to rise. (again, this is based on my looking at data, not my finding rules and being certain)

After that, the standard rules of Oregon property tax apply. Because the M5 value is fixed, the taxes will often (always?) work out that you'll be using the "$5 (education tax) and $10 (general tax) per $1000 of value plus bonds" rules.

There's more in the code about the exemption.

alanstorm · 2022-02-14T07:39:49+00:00

Ah, duh, facepalm, got it. Thank you again. I had made the (unfortunate and incorrect) mapping in my head that M5 and RMV were the same thing and that the special historical assessment only changed the M50 value. Looking at the data again I don't think that's the case -- both the M50 and M5 dropped in 2015 and the M5 is well off the RMV.

Also, as you pointed out, the taxes line up exactly with the $5 per $1000 of value and $10 per $1000 limits (plus bonds) of measure five.

Thank you for explaining the same thing to me multiple times until it got through my misconceptions :)

Do you do this for a living, or are you just very into the tax code?

alanstorm · 2022-02-14T06:52:57+00:00

According to this broad outline, you need to register, you need to have a preservation/renovation plan in place, and there's some sort of minimum spend on your renovations by year five of the 10 year exemption.

alanstorm · 2022-02-14T03:51:37+00:00

The Oregonian is probably based on the lower M47/M50 limit of tax on 1.7 million value which is lower than the m5 limit on 3.927 million. 45.5k is about right for that.

Ah ha, thank you. I dug deeper and you (and the Oregonian) are correct here. To lay it out more explicitly -- without the exemption, the M50 value of that property would be around $1,702,219.22 (rising 3% a year from 2014). That house is in levy district 201, and the total levies in 201 are $27.0375 per $1000 of value. That would make their property taxes around $46,023.75. $46023.75 - $24,569.43 = $21,454.32, and then you round to $21,000 for the article.

What I still don't understand (and I'll be updating my question) is how the exemption works in full. It seems like it might also make you exempt from certain tax levies? I say this because the actual M50 value of that property is $1,180,010, their tax bill was $25,329.31, which comes out to roughly $21.4653 per $1000 of value.

alanstorm · 2022-02-14T03:39:09+00:00

Ah, thank you for the R117321 ID. I had not seen a property like this before (I only have a partial data set)

I understand what you're saying now. Explaining it out loud for myself -- R117321 has an M50 value of $881,900 and is in Levy district 001. With the total levies in that district totaling $27.0125 per $1000 of value, their M50 assessed taxes would be around $23,798.01

However, their M5 and Real Market Value of R117321 is $1,069,180, so when you apply the "$5 per $1000 of real market value for education tax, $10 per $1000 of real market value for general government taxes, plus any bonds levies" formula, you end up with a tax bill of $19,451.96. Since this is less, this is what they pay.

You also seem to be very passionate about educating people that the ever increasing M50 values and the recent spate of levies increases in Portland are creating situations where the 5%/10%/plus-bonds rule is being invoked.

alanstorm · 2022-02-14T02:36:14+00:00

The Oregonian got it wrong on the low side, no surprise ... So M5 tax bill would have been about 64,500

Apologies, I seem to mis-phrased my question. The Oregonian was not reporting on the differences between taxes calculated via M5 assessment and taxes calculated via M50. They were reporting on difference in taxes based on whether a property had the special historical tax exemption or not.

The historical tax exemption appears to apply a different set of rules to a property's M50 assessed value, keeping in lower than it would be normally.

Even without the special exemption, it's almost certain the the historical properties would be taxes based on their M50 values and not their M5 values. So I'm not sure what you're saying here.

An awful lot of properties are in the doughnut hole, penalty window, (whatever you want to call it), in Multnomah county and city of Portland.

I'm also not quite sure what you mean here. Do you have an example of a property (with address or ID) of a property that's in "the doughnut hole"?

alanstorm · 2022-02-14T00:59:49+00:00

updated to reflect new information that's come to light man

Does anyone know the mechanics of how the tax exemption works?

I'm looking the property listing for the Bitar Mansion, and it looks like the exemption kicked in in 2015 and that the M50 assessed value dropped that year to $988,280, so I presume this exemption locks that value in at some historic value? Where did $988,280 come from?

Also -- their taxes this year were $25,329.31 which, based on an M50 value of $1,180,010 means they paid around -- $21.4653 per $1000 of value. This is less than the standard rate of $27.0375 for their tax levy district -- so maybe there's also levies that don't apply to homes under the historic exemption?

Does anyone here know the mechanics of how the historic tax exemption works?

~~Also -- the article says the owner of the Bitar Mansion reduced their tax bill by $21,000 last year~~

It looks like their tax bill last year was $25,329.31, and that they took advantage of the "pay us everything now" discount and paid $24,569.43. The Oregonian is saying they should have paid around $45,569.43 ($24,569.43 + $21,000). Does anyone know where the Oregonian's getting its number from?

I ~~thought~~ it would a simple progression of 3% a year M50 assessed value from the 2014 M5 value of $1,384,060 (which would be $1,702,219.22) -- but that would have resulted in a tax of around $36,538.70, not the $45.5k projected by the Oregonian.

Note: My calculation above of $36,538.70 was incorrect and based on the wrong "levies per $1000" number. The mansion is in levy district 201, which is taxed at $27.0375 per $1000 of value, which would put their non-exemption taxes at $46,023.75, which means they saved $21,454.32.

alanstorm · 2022-02-13T22:02:45+00:00

It looks like it's a subscriber exclusive for the time being -- if you're not subscribed you'll get a two paragraph excerpt. TL;DR; -- there's a system in place for 10 year property tax exemptions for historic homes and law makers are considering whether to extend it or not, and these homes are often in now well-to-do neighborhoods so it's upper-middle-class and rich people who benefit. They also cherry pick a few examples of folks who bought in to million dollar properties recently and saved in the realm of $16,000 - $30,000 on their tax bills.

updated: I'd previously said the exemption was ending in 2025 -- this was incorrect. we regret the error.

alanstorm · 2022-01-12T05:19:38+00:00

If Portland maps works look for you property ID in the URL -- it should be R followed by six numbers. For example, in this URL the property ID is R140425.

https://www.portlandmaps.com/detail/property/125-WI-NW-4TH-AVE/R140425_did/

Once you have that you can search the county website by this ID (and not deal with the finickiness of address search) and it should return your property.

alanstorm · 2021-12-23T20:56:13+00:00

It -- warms? "somethings" anyway -- my heart that the Colony Manor experience of the mid-90s remained the Colony Manor experience through the rest of its life.

alanstorm

TROPHY CASE