- ILLUSTRATION BY FRANCOIS VIGNEAULT
Josh Alpert, Hales' director of strategic initiatives, says that question has essentially been decided.
"We're going to go back to more of a user fee," Alpert told me this morning. "It's probably the fastest way of actually getting projects going."
That would be a key concession that mollifies one of the most important opponents of that previous plan for a modified, capped income tax: the Portland Business Alliance.
The PBA had put the income tax high on its list of grievances—with its members and leadership complaining that any new tax ought to be put up for a public vote and not merely enacted by city council. If the income tax had remained in the package, the PBA told me as recently as yesterday that it would have teamed up with others looking to refer to the street fund to voters and fight what might have been a bitter campaign. (Not that others, like oil lobbyist Paul Romain or citizens involved with the No Street Fee grass-roots effort wouldn't be free to launch their own efforts—even if those efforts, like a push earlier this year to create a new water district—might suffer from a lack of access to PBA members' wallets.)
Update 2:30 PM: Novick, returning a message seeking comment, stopped well short of sharing Alpert's seeming bullishness over a return to a user fee. He says he's still working to see whether progressive groups might go to the mattresses to help pass the income tax he prefers. That support for a ballot fight, if it's strong enough, could change city hall's cautious calculation that avoiding a fight via a less-desirable revenue package is better than waging a big fight over something better—and losing.
"I told progressive allies that I need to hear from them on what resources they think they can bring to a campaign for a progressive income tax," says Novick. "So I'm waiting to hear from them." ///end update
In the Oregonian, this morning PBA boss Sandra McDonough mulled over the strong possibility a fee might re-emerge and said she thought "it would be nice to get to a solution" and hinted that the PBA might live without an immediate public vote. Instead, she mentioned plans to build a six-year sunset into the street fund plan—and suggested that would be an appropriate time for the public to weigh in.
Alpert says the shape of a sunset provision is "still being discussed" but confirmed that an automatic referral was still on the table. When the council first amended the street fee proposal to include a sunset, the idea was to have the next council choose whether to continue the revenue measures, cancel them, or send them to voters.
But he confirmed the PBA has decided to compromise on something else important to city hall. Despite the PBA's demands that a larger share of the money raised for street repairs and safety projects be spent on paving maintenance, Alpert says the current proposed breakdown, which would still see 56 percent of available revenue spent on maintenance, won't change.
"The mayor's made it clear he's not interested in changing that allocation percentage," Alpert says. "That stuff is largely done."
He expects the council will take up the revised proposal on January 8—followed by a final vote on January 14. There may be some attempt to add a fourth or fifth vote to the package—Commissioner Amanda Fritz has long loomed as Novick and Hales' third vote—but Alpert also says that's not where Hales' office's energy will be focused. Commissioners Nick Fish and Dan Saltzman have both been publicly opposed to pushing the revenue measures through solely with council support—and it's not clear whether the prospect of an automatic referral after the 2020 tax year will soften their stance.
"It's time to figure out where the building is," Alpert says of Portland City Hall. "We have been spending the entire year focused on making sure we have enough public support to do this.But we don't get to do that if we can't get something out of our building. It would be fantastic to have a unanimous vote. But we are focused on making sure we can vote something out of the building."
