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This post has since been updated with fresh comments from Commissioners Amanda Fritz and Steve Novick, as well as Mayor Charlie Hales' office.

The street fee political math in city hall—never a simple matter in all the months of wrangling starting last spring—may have just become fatally complicated.

The plan's one-time likely third vote, Commissioner Amanda Fritz, has announced this afternoon she won't support Commissioner Steve Novick and Mayor Charlie Hales' latest proposal for raising millions in new transportation revenue, a new, income-moderated fee based on residents' gas consumption. Novick and Hales announced that fee last week, after scrapping an income tax, in a bid to buy silence from key opponents like the Portland Business Alliance.

Fritz, however, says the new proposal, which would raise more than half of the nearly $42 million sought by Hales and Novick, isn't progressive enough. She wants an income tax. She also wants that tax to go before voters in 2016, something Novick has repeatedly mused about doing. She's taken the rare step of announcing her opinion ahead of a public hearing planned, at her behest, this Thursday night.

“I have many friends and constituents for whom even $3 per month would mean skipping a meal, or being unable to buy a bus ticket to get to work,” she said in a prepared statement. “Three dollars per month is $36 per year, more than the Arts Tax which is also regressive. We should learn from past experience, and we should not solve one problem by making another struggle worse.”

Her lack of support means Hales and Novick will have to scramble just to get their street fund proposal out of the building—well before considering whether business groups or upset citizens might try to refer it to the ballot. Without changes to win Fritz over, Hales and Novick now have to win over either Commissioner Dan Saltzman or Nick Fish, both of whom have said they think the proposal should go before voters without a referral.

That doesn't appear to have changed for Fish. A call to Saltzman's office has not been returned. It could be that a sweetener calling for a referral of the street fund in 2020 may give Saltzman the room he needs to change course.

Update 4:20 PM: Hales' spokesman, asked about the mayor's reaction, has written back explaining that Hales doesn't have one.

Yes, I just heard. No, I don’t think we have any reaction to her announcement.

UPDATE 4:32 PM: Fritz, in an interview, says she broke from her tradition of waiting for a hearing to give her thoughts in part so the people who show up Thursday night can be more pointed and strategic in how they craft their comments. She pointed to plans, in the latest version of the street fee, to refer the whole thing to voters in 2020 and called out Saltzman and Fish as potentially being willing to change their minds on saying no.

"This one has a referral," Fritz said, "that's maybe where folks need to focus their energy."

Saltzman's office has yet to return another message seeking comment. Fish has also immediately declined to comment.

Novick, in comments shared with me and Andrew Theen of the Oregonian, was keeping a stiff upper lip about it all. He said the announcement "doesn't change our plans." The chance of defeat had always loomed, he says.

"I said last week that I don't know if the latest fee proposal will get out of council," he wrote. "I thought and think I had/have a responsibility to put something forward that might be enacted before 2016. So we'll bring it forward, and if it loses, we'll start working on Plan B."

Novick's always been sanguine that making a move to appease the Portland Business Alliance, by ditching an income tax he and Hales had come up with in the fall, risked losing the support of progressive allies who already didn't think the more progressive option Novick and Hales scrapped was progressive enough.

Fritz says her issues "were pretty clear along along." She thought about the fee proposal when it was first put forward, and told them she didn't think she could support it—even while promising she'd look at it more deeply.

And when she told Novick and Hales what she'd decided, before announcing it?

"Both of them," she said, "said 'I'm not surprised.'"

Read Fritz's full statement below.

MONDAY, JAN. 5, 2015 – Commissioner Amanda Fritz announced today that she does not support the proposed street funding mechanism based on assumed gas use related to income.
“My standard practice is to wait to consider testimony at the public hearing before announcing how I will vote on items on the Council Agenda,” said Commissioner Fritz in a press release issued mid-day on Monday. “I have heard from thousands of Portlanders since the first street funding proposal hearing in May. The latest proposal is similar to others that have already been widely discussed, and I want folks to know where I stand going into the public hearing on Thursday.”

Fritz explained that while she is convinced that additional revenue is needed to repair our streets and provide crucial safety improvements, she cannot support a funding mechanism that would require people living in poverty to contribute, and would disproportionately burden middle class families. “I have many friends and constituents for whom even $3 per month would mean skipping a meal, or being unable to buy a bus ticket to get to work,” she said. “Three dollars per month is $36 per year, more than the Arts Tax which is also regressive. We should learn from past experience, and we should not solve one problem by making another struggle worse.”

“Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Do what you believe in your heart is right, for you will be criticized anyway,” Fritz said. “I believe the right approach is a progressive income tax, which the Council should refer to the November 2016 ballot to allow maximum possible public participation. While I would consider voting for a progressive income tax with a sunset and no referral, I believe it would be better to provide certainty on the timing of a public vote.”