The state legislature is putting together a package of road proposals, as the latest Portland street fee proposals flounder.
BY JACOB PALMER | OB DIGITAL NEWS EDITOR
Across the state, lawmakers are dealing with a bevy of dilemmas concerning crumbling infrastructure.
Senate president Peter Courtney and Speaker of the House Tina Kotek announced Tuesday they intend on proposing a wide-reaching infrastructure solution.
According to the Statesman Journal, the moves would require tax increases, which could make bipartisan support difficult to secure.
If they succeed, the legislature will be sticking to a consistent schedule for big infrastructure packages: it passed one six years ago in 2009, and it passed one six years before that in 2003. …
Kotek’s spokesman Jared Mason-Gere said the details will have to be worked out during the session and no specific projects have been decided on now. Lawmakers will have to talk with businesses, transportation advocates and local governments to identify the best uses of the money, he said.
In Portland, the City Council announced earlier this week it is mulling an unprecedented nonbinding advisory vote. On Thursday, the Portland Tribune wrote that the move could be costly and ineffective.
Portland’s cost could be between $100,000 and $200,000, according to Deborah Scroggins, the city’s elections officer. But Scroggins says the final figure depends on many factors that won’t be known until after all the votes are counted.
It is hard to predict how many Portlanders would even vote on the street fee measure. May elections in odd-numbered years do not generate as many votes as those held in even-numbered years, when state, regional, county or city candidates are on the May primary election ballot.
But the street fee isn’t the end of the Rose City’s transportation troubles, as the general contractor for the Sellwood Bridge upgrade is suing Multnomah County for unpaid bills.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, Slayden/Sundt claims that county officials refuse to cover higher-than-expected costs for driving bridge pilings under and along the Willamette River.
Company officials say Multnomah County should pay for the work because the county provided inaccurate reports about the difficulty of riverbed drilling. County officials declined to directly comment on the lawsuit.
Read more at OregonLive.com.
