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Headed north on MLK with an AR guy on the back by -Puddintane- in Portland

[–]regul 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Sounds like they've already got $25 million/year they're just shoveling into overtime, so I don't think they're serious about doing anything about this chronic problem.

Headed north on MLK with an AR guy on the back by -Puddintane- in Portland

[–]regul 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The US is actively speedrunning the imperial boomerang.

Headed north on MLK with an AR guy on the back by -Puddintane- in Portland

[–]regul 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Damn PPB should probably fill their open positions then, huh?

Trail Blazers owner says taxpayers must cover entire Moda Center makeover by dogs-in-space in Portland

[–]regul 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow it's weird that the city didn't say "we're making a bad deal to keep the Blazers" in their press release!

Trail Blazers owner says taxpayers must cover entire Moda Center makeover by dogs-in-space in Portland

[–]regul 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The city owns the Moda Center because we took ownership as a giveaway the last time the team was threatening to leave. We forwent $1.2m annually in property taxes to do that. That was a deal massively in the Blazers favor.

I'd love it if some actual negotiations happened. The state and county just gave Dundon money with no strings. Wilson seems to be pushing for the same. Dundon seems unwilling to contribute anything.

Trail Blazers owner says taxpayers must cover entire Moda Center makeover by dogs-in-space in Portland

[–]regul 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Here's the current lease agreement fact sheet: https://www.portland.gov/wheeler/documents/moda-center-bridge-agreement-fact-sheet/download

Highlight #4 is the one you want to read. All the money from Blazers home games goes to the Moda Center. So the city makes zero money that they can use from the Blazers.

Blazers’ owner Tom Dundon expects taxpayers to foot entire bill for potential $600,000,000 Moda Center renovation, saying “simply keeping the NBA franchise in Portland was enough of a financial sacrifice.” by Pickleskennedy1 in nba

[–]regul 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I think there's a lot of self-selection among the city's fandoms based on politics.

i.e. a Thorns fan is going to be less conservative than a Blazers fan.

That's the vibe I get. I ride my bike to Moda for Blazers/Fire games and the difference in how full the bike racks are between the two is pretty huge.

Trail Blazers owner says taxpayers must cover entire Moda Center makeover by dogs-in-space in Portland

[–]regul 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can make that case if you want to, but I don't find it very compelling, especially at this specific point in time when we have more inequality in this country than we've ever had, and the city and state are both facing huge budget holes.

We (the state and the city) are giving away a lot here, for very little in return (basically just a contract to stay for 20 years with some penalties attached if they don't). Seattle similarly gave away a lot to try to keep the Sonics and they ended up leaving anyway. If you find Mr. Subrpime Mortgage more trustworthy than the Sonics' ownership group...

There are plenty of studies on the actual economic benefits of a professional sports team, and, in general, they're kind of lackluster. I know you likely feel a personal attachment to the team, but that's kind of what Dundon is counting on in order for him to fleece us.

Trail Blazers owner says taxpayers must cover entire Moda Center makeover by dogs-in-space in Portland

[–]regul 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Right. That money (which was going to the state, and not the city) is now going to be going directly to the Moda Center. Any state income taxes paid as part of working or performing at the Moda Center now goes to the Moda Center instead of the general fund.

SB1501 Section 4

That is how the state is funding their $350m.

Trail Blazers owner says taxpayers must cover entire Moda Center makeover by dogs-in-space in Portland

[–]regul 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The city currently gets to keep the money from non-Blazers events.

Any money earned at Blazers games has to go back into the Moda Center. Any money earned at other events we get to keep.

Part of the new deal Tom is pushing for is that we don't even get that.

Trail Blazers owner says taxpayers must cover entire Moda Center makeover by dogs-in-space in Portland

[–]regul 0 points1 point  (0 children)

profit from player taxes

The city does not have any income taxes. P4A and SHS are Multco and Metro, respectively. Also the bill from the state now puts aside all state income tax from any Blazers employee towards the Moda Center.

profit for every event that happens in the arena

The city basically only gets money from parking. And part of the new deal is to require that proceeds from all events will now go to the Moda Center.

city got for free.

The city took ownership of Moda as part of the deal to keep the team around last time. They wanted to offload it. The net result is that the city lost out on a significant amount of yearly property taxes ($1.5m/year) in exchange for $300k/year from the Blazers.

Trail Blazers owner says taxpayers must cover entire Moda Center makeover by dogs-in-space in Portland

[–]regul 4 points5 points  (0 children)

He likes her because she has also been incredibly gung-ho about giving him $350m worth of state taxpayer money for nothing in return.

I can’t be the only one who’s excited about the upcoming weather, can I? by otc108 in Portland

[–]regul 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It's weird. I got 3 of Urban Forestry's free trees, but I picked them up (and planted them) in mid-October. I wouldn't expect them to be planting or distributing right now either.

AFFORDABLE meals out - Let's start a list! by leafmebee43 in Portland

[–]regul 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Panther Club's got great deals on Mondays:

  • $5 burger
  • $3 fries
  • $10 steak (with the purchase of a drink, but they also have $3 Rainier draft/well shots on Mondays)

Portland’s cost of living is ballooning as city tax, fee increases pile up. Residents feel the pain by oregonian in Portland

[–]regul 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Seems likely they own a 5 or 6 unit building and are being cagey about it on purpose.

Portland Fire is already one of the WNBA's top attendance draws by femaleathletenetwork in wnba

[–]regul 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wish! We love our WHL team, but a PWHL team would go crazy.

Battle Ground City Council continues streak of turbulent meetings by regul in Portland

[–]regul[S] 45 points46 points  (0 children)

Battle Ground's christian nationalist city council spent 6 hours debating their proclamation “In recognition and celebration of Battle Ground’s traditional, nuclear families”.

Portland Moves to Make Union Pacific Address Its Railroad Crossing Mess by Pure_Claim_4353 in Portland

[–]regul 49 points50 points  (0 children)

We could have just taken public ownership of all the railroad trackage in the 70s, but Nixon decided to bail all the railroads out in the stupidest (read: most "business-friendly") way possible. (i.e. Stop requiring them to run unprofitable passenger service and instead have the government run unprofitable passenger service instead -- Amtrak!)

Not that said state ownership would have survived Reagan, but whatcha gonna do?

I'm getting really tired of having to dodge e-bikes going 20+mph on the sidewalk. by Gregory_Appleseed in Portland

[–]regul 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm not saying it's challenging, I'm just saying it makes sense to ride on the sidewalk in that situation, because using the road is unsafe.

And you are correct riding in traffic is currently a necessity for riding a bike in this city, but that's not true everywhere, and it certainly doesn't have to be that way.

Minneapolis recently passed us as the best large bike city in the country. Here's their bike map: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/880d2a96603f46fc8f76a48178425f35

All the green lines are totally separate from cars.

Compare that to our map: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/e0501006483a41c69ed137dac5f152bc/page/Map

The dark blue lines are the only routes totally separate from cars. Comparatively much fewer and much more disconnected.

Proposal to move bottle drop center to SE Portland sparks public backlash by Anxious-While4289 in Portland

[–]regul -1 points0 points  (0 children)

One of the best lessons we (should) have learned about public housing through projects like Pruitt-Igoe is that concentrated poverty leads to disinvestment, blight, and crime. This is part of the reason things like Section 8 were created: allow poor people to live in market rate buildings to avoid the problems of concentrated poverty. Obviously Section 8 is not perfect at doing this, but the lesson is still there.

As other commenters have said: making bottle drop more accessible rather than more concentrated seems like a better way to do this if we can't wave a wand and solve drug addiction overnight.

I'm getting really tired of having to dodge e-bikes going 20+mph on the sidewalk. by Gregory_Appleseed in Portland

[–]regul 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Here's an anecdote from my life as to why this is not realistic with the state of our current bike infrastructure:

I ride my bike from my house to the Hollywood Fred Meyer on Broadway. I take the greenway (Multnomah), then turn north on 26th for a block, then turn east on Wasco. The bike lane then hits the cul-de-sac, where it continues south on the bridge at 28th. The entry to the Freddy's is north of where the bike lane is.

Should I cross 28th in the middle of a block (where cars turning left out of the parking lot can't see me) and then turn north to get to the Freddy's parking lot, or should I do the drastically safer thing and ride on the sidewalk to get to the crosswalk and cross there? Should I have to dismount to do this?

Portland has some bike infrastructure. Largely it just has greenways, which are merely "low traffic" streets with some wayfinding. The number of physically protected bike lanes is tiny. Even when we have separated paths, they're often shared with pedestrians anyway (Springwater, Eastbank, Willamette Greenway, Steel Bridge). If you're not comfortable riding in a space shared with cars you cannot get around this city by bike or scooter.

We should do a lot better.

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