The 800-Pound Gorilla

This Opinion piece, written by a Milwaukie resident for The Clackamas Review, sounds like she could be living in Lake Oswego.  Her concerns are ours, and most likely duplicate feelings of citizens from all over the Metro area.  State legislators who created oppressive "Climate Smart" laws and gave Metro so much power, should rethink the nature of this beast before it eats them too.  

The plans have been in the works for years; the consultants, developers, industrialists and NGOs have made a living off of them; politicians and planners have basked in the fading light of Portland's smart growth reputation.  But the plans don't fit what citizens in the suburbs want.  The destruction of neighborhoods by freeways and Urban Renewal was recognized and halted decades ago, but that doesn't stop today's planners from looking for new (and reviving old) ways to disrupt our communities and lives with even grander schemes about what we need today.  Here's part of Jean Baker's story.  Read the whole thing at The Clackamas Review Website.     

Neighbors fed up with Metro's track record

By Jean Baker, Clackamas Review, February 26, 2014

Those of us who, in the late 1970s, had big misgivings about the former Columbia Region Association of Governments morphing into Metro (the current regional government) did not imagine how much of Milwaukie’s (and all regional cities) government autonomy would be ripped away under the pretense of lower cost services and better facilities management of a few regional functions.

Over time it went from coordinating to an 800-pound gorilla who runs the show from behind the curtain and it is costing us dearly! It costs our tax dollars, our legitimate citizen participation process, input on critical developments which change the character of our city, of how taxes are or are not collected, of subsidies to the rich, and potential loss of safety, security and livability of neighborhoods.

For nearly 20 years, Metro has been busy proposing, promoting and ensuring that cities in its jurisdiction follow their version of smart growth. It includes putting high density, “affordable” and low-income housing in a mile-wide swath around every MAX light-rail line. With the stealth of a Wall Street bank, they are reversing the long-used system in which corporations pay taxes to governments, to where governments pay corporations to build. The public is forced to pay with tax dollars when it would cost less if a private party/corporation paid their own way. We in the neighborhood understand this, and appreciate that the Portland Tribune is talking about the backward, upside-down planners who are screwing up neighborhoods as they tell us they don’t have funds for needed local services.

For three years, I have felt that there was a problem in the city-planning process. It just didn’t add up: It wasn’t just me they didn’t want to know too much, they didn’t want people to see whole documents, in ordinance changes. Like looking through a hole in the fence to see the elephant — all we saw were little pieces without the full context of what the changes really meant, and in many cases, they failed to provide adequate information about which document was being changed and how it fit in with others. They have avoided a full review of the Comprehensive Plan for 23 years, choosing to chip away one little piece at a time, but constantly! Even they have trouble keeping track of the changes.

We have paid huge salaries for our planners who farm their work out to consultants at many times their huge salaries. Even our city manager claims degrees in law and land-use planning. So how did we get so messed up? How many planners does it take to screw up a neighborhood?